President Donald Trump announced during his State of the Union address to Congress that major technology companies will be required to fund and build their own power plants for artificial intelligence (AI) data centers. The announcement comes as the State of Florida is considering regulations on data center growth.
President Trump introduced what he called the ratepayer protection pledge. The initiative is intended to address concerns about energy demand from expanding AI infrastructure while protecting local electricity prices. In the State of the Union President Trump said that major tech companies will “have the obligation to provide for their own power needs.”
“They can build their own power plants as part of their factory, so that no one’s prices will go up and in many cases, prices of electricity will go down for the community, and very substantially then,” Trump said. “For all of these cities and towns, you’re going to see some good things happen over the next number of years.”
Polling by Associated Industries of Florida shows that 64 percent of Florida voters support building data centers in their communities as a way to lower property taxes and protect critical data from foreign adversaries. Support is higher among Republicans at 77 percent, Hispanic voters at 70 percent, and seniors at 74 percent according to polling.
The White House has also engaged with Florida legislators regarding its position that AI policy should be governed federally rather than through individual state measures. Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez said he believes regulation should be addressed by the federal government as reported by The Daily Signal.
In executive orders issued in 2025, President Donald Trump positioned artificial intelligence and data-center infrastructure as priorities for U.S. economic and national security, arguing in a December order that American leadership in AI would promote national and economic dominance and that U.S. companies must be free to innovate without what he called excessive state regulation. In a separate July order, Trump said his administration had ushered in a “golden age” of manufacturing and technological dominance and directed federal agencies to accelerate the permitting and construction of AI data centers and supporting infrastructure.
A U.S. Chamber of Commerce report states that a typical data center employs 1,688 local workers during construction, generates $77.7 million in wages, produces $243.5 million in local economic activity, supports 157 permanent jobs once operational, and contributes $1.1 million annually in state and local tax revenue according to the report.
