President Donald Trump is accelerating his push to expand artificial intelligence and the data-center footprint that powers it, even as local resistance grows. Palm Beach, Fla., home to his Mar-a-Lago estate, approved a one-year moratorium on new data-center construction, highlighting tensions between national ambitions and community-level concerns over power, land use and costs.
Mr. Trump said the U.S. remains roughly a year ahead of China in AI and plans White House meetings with industry leaders, including a dinner with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. His administration’s attorney general argued new AI laws aren’t needed, while Bill Gates urged broader statutory safeguards beyond a simple “kill switch.” Beijing said it “respects” Mr. Trump’s preference for the term “super intelligence,” underscoring the geopolitical framing of the AI race. The White House is set to unveil America.gov, an AI-enabled portal for accessing federal services, as Republicans such as Sen. Ted Cruz warn that foreign influence is shaping domestic debates over data-center buildouts. The split-screen dynamic—federal urgency vs. local pauses—underscores how permitting, energy availability and regulatory clarity will determine the pace of U.S. AI infrastructure.
Trump presses AI and data-center expansion even as Palm Beach enacts one-year construction pause
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