By Courtney Rozen, Steve Holland and Alexandra Alper
WASHINGTON, Sept 29 (Reuters) - US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said tech companies will work to make communities "happy" about the construction of data centers, as the industry faces growing local opposition to the facilities' expansion.
Trump made the comment after meeting with tech executives at the White House. Data centers, which provide the computing power used to develop and run AI systems, are a central component of the AI boom. Their
expansion has drawn opposition in communities nationwide over concerns about electricity demand, utility costs and other local impacts, prompting companies to offer incentives aimed at easing those concerns.
Data centers are "going to do things for the community that will be really financially beneficial," he told reporters.
Trump largely skipped talking about the safety of AI tools in his statement following the meeting, beyond saying it is "very important" that AI companies regulate the dangers of their own technology.
Pressure is mounting on the Trump administration to address risks posed by AI, after OpenAI and Anthropic reported their AI agents had gone rogue and hacked into customers' systems. The intrusions prompted researchers to warn that some AI developers believe the technology could kill humans within a decade, fueling calls for action from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers.
Executives in Tuesday's White House meeting included Anthropic's Dario Amodei, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Google's Sundar Pichai, Nvidia's Jensen Huang and Palantir's Alex Karp. From the Trump administration, tech adviser Michael Kratsios and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick attended, as did US House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Trump met with the executives the same day his aides announced a new AI tool that they say will make it easier for the public to use government services. Silicon Valley executives attended the launch event on Tuesday morning, including Meta's Dina Powell McCormick and Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire. Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia led the design of the new tool. Silicon Valley companies Google, SpaceX, Meta and 8VC were listed in the launch event's program as sponsors.
Trump at the launch event said he does not want to work with Chinese President Xi Jinping on governing AI technology, adding that doing so would make it harder for US companies to build better AI products than their Chinese counterparts. Trump also said that he discussed AI with Xi when he visited the US last week, adding that the US already works with Xi's government "in so many ways."
"We're leading now over China and everyone else, and I want to keep it that way," Trump said at the event.
Bipartisan legislative efforts in the Senate centered around AI regulation have stalled. Senator Ted Cruz, one of the Republicans involved in the discussions, said on Tuesday that he hopes to "move forward with it" after the November midterm elections.
(Reporting by Courtney Rozen, Steven Holland and Alexandra Alper in Washington; additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; editing by David Gaffen and Nick Zieminski)
