Texas’ courting of AI data centers is hitting a sharp political wall. Gov. Greg Abbott, who less than a year ago touted Texas as the “epicenter of AI” while celebrating Google’s $40 billion data center plans, is now blasting the companies behind that boom, saying they deserve the backlash they are experiencing because they failed to get the support of communities, Axios reports.
Data centers “pop up in places that nobody ever heard of before, until they started the construction,” Abbott told ABC’s This Week. “And so, they had not been working in collaboration with the state, they’d not been in collaboration with local governments, and so they basically dug their own grave for the problem that’s been caused for them and that’s why they got the backlash they deserve.”
Earlier this month, Abbott ordered a moratorium on new data centers due to concerns including water and power use, Politico reports. The governor has also ordered state regulators to make data centers shoulder full grid-infrastructure costs, phase out tax breaks, and audit projects before they plug into the Texas power system, reports Axios. Similar reversals are popping up elsewhere: Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro just tightened rules after welcoming a massive Amazon build, and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul slapped a one-year freeze on hyperscale projects
The political risk is growing as quickly as the server farms. An Annenberg survey last month found 61% of Americans oppose a new data center in their area, up from 49% in March, with resistance spanning both parties. Republicans are now warning AI firms they could cost the party a key Ohio Senate seat. President Trump is pushing the opposite line, arguing Texas is wrong to turn data centers away and claiming the sector “could be bigger than oil.”