U.S. President Donald Trump (도널드 트럼프) openly criticised local communities opposing construction of artificial intelligence data centres and stepped into the debate over expanding them.

On Aug. 31, multiple foreign media outlets including CNBC reported that Trump wrote on Truth Social that the only reason communities across the United States do not want data centres is that they want to become backward and poor. He criticised the movement opposing data centres. He also argued that accepting data centres could lower tax burdens and increase jobs, leading to economic success.

Trump also warned that areas refusing data centres could lose business opportunities to other places. He said responsibility would lie with them if they killed a goose that lays golden eggs. He also claimed China would welcome the opposition to data centres.

Trump's remarks came as opposition to data centres has grown in the United States and Republicans have begun to view it as an election risk. The National Republican Senatorial Committee warned in a recent internal memo that if voters' negative perceptions of data centres are not improved quickly, the opposition movement could spread beyond Ohio.

In Ohio, Republican Senator Jon Husted (존 허스테드) and Democratic candidate Sherrod Brown (셰러드 브라운) are in a razor-thin race, it said. The election is to fill the remainder of the Senate term vacated by Vice President JD Vance (JD 밴스). The NRSC assessed that Brown has made opposition to data centre construction a core campaign issue and that it is having an effect in the election.

The NRSC said Ohio is one of the regions leading AI data centre construction and that the data centre issue is the biggest burden for Husted in this election. It said that if data centres are cited as the reason for Husted's defeat, national politicians could feel burdened about backing future data centre projects.

Opinion polls have also shown clear opposition. In a March survey by Gallup, 7 in 10 Americans opposed building AI data centres in their local areas. Of those, 48 percent said they strongly opposed it. Wolfe Research also said in a report on Aug. 28 that it has repeatedly been asked in recent meetings with investors how voter backlash against data centres will unfold. It said it also found cases in which net support for local data centre construction fell by as much as 60 points over the past 12 months regardless of party.

The rise in opposition to data centres is tied to the rapid expansion of the AI industry. AI data centres house large-scale computing equipment needed to train and run AI models developed by OpenAI and Anthropic, among others. The use of powerful graphics processing units on a large scale is driving up electricity demand, while water use for cooling and noise are also increasing burdens on local communities.

Data centres in the United States are increasing quickly along with the spread of AI. In Texas and elsewhere, local pushback is growing over the construction of large-scale data centres. In several states in the Colorado River basin that face drought and water shortages, data centre construction is also leading to a new debate over water use.

Some data centre developers are working with communities and power companies to share electricity costs or recycle used water, but there are also criticisms that systems are not sufficient to comprehensively regulate the impact of data centres on local resources and the environment.

The Trump administration continues to push for expanding data centres and AI infrastructure to strengthen the AI industry's competitiveness. Trump has stressed that building data centres can bring jobs and higher tax revenue, but communities are raising their opposition as they worry about the impact on electricity, water resources, the environment and living conditions.

With the November midterm elections approaching, the data centre issue is expanding beyond economic and technology policy into a political issue and is expected to become a variable for U.S. policies to expand AI infrastructure.