Trump says data centres should pay local communities "dividends" to win public support

US President Donald Trump said data centre operators should pay local communities or individuals a “dividend” to secure public support for their projects, while calling for large facilities to generate their own electricity and supply surplus power to the local community or grid.

US President Donald Trump said data centre operators should pay local communities or individuals a “dividend” to secure public support for their projects, while calling for large facilities to generate their own electricity and supply surplus power to the local community or grid. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he had been closely monitoring data centres and concluded that new and large facilities should be required to generate their own electricity, arguing that this could help prevent increases in local electricity prices and potentially lead to a substantial decrease.

“If companies want to make their Data Centers popular, pay the community, and/or individuals within the community, a ‘dividend’,” Trump said in the post. He added that data centres that had been unpopular in certain areas had become popular after companies reached financial agreements with local communities.

“I have watched the process closely, and data centers that were highly unpopular in a certain area, have become extremely popular when a financial deal is struck,” he said. Trump also called on companies to negotiate such arrangements with communities to facilitate the construction of data centres, ending his post with the appeal: “Make deals, and get them built!!! great for the U.S.A.”

His remarks come as data centres, which support cloud computing and artificial intelligence workloads, require substantial amounts of electricity to operate. His post focused on addressing local concerns over power costs and ensuring that communities hosting such facilities receive financial benefits. Trump said large data centres should return or sell any excess electricity they generate to the local community or power grid. He suggested that the approach could help ease pressure on electricity prices rather than contribute to increases.

The proposed community dividend would offer another way for operators to address local opposition, with Trump citing financial agreements as a factor that could change public sentiment towards projects. However, the post did not specify how the proposed electricity-generation requirement or community payments would be implemented, what form the dividends would take, or whether the administration would introduce a formal policy or regulatory mandate.

Trump concluded that negotiating financial arrangements with local communities could help companies gain acceptance for data centre projects and accelerate their construction across the United States. (ANI)