President Trump criticised Texas’s growing resistance to AI data centres, saying the state was making a mistake by opposing them. His intervention highlights a political split within a Republican stronghold: the White House sees the facilities as vital to US competitiveness in artificial intelligence, while many rural communities fear their effects on electricity, water and local land.

Trump made the comments in an interview with Punchbowl News, shortly after Governor Greg Abbott halted approvals for new data-centre grid connections pending an audit. Texas regulators face requests from around 1,800 projects seeking 474 gigawatts of power, far exceeding the state’s record peak demand; Abbott has argued that developers should bear infrastructure costs rather than households.