Emirati billionaire proposes $20 billion for US data centers: Trump

PALM BEACH: Emirati billionaire Hussain Sajwani committed to spend $20 billion in the expanding US data center business in the next years, he and US President-elect Donald Trump said on Tuesday at Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, residence.

With an election victory mainly fueled by voters’ economic worries, Trump has doubled down on increasing investments in local companies and suggested greater tariffs on Chinese imports as the US seeks to limit China’s access to the chips required for sophisticated data centers.
“We intend to invest $20 billion, and possibly more, if market conditions allow,” said Sajwani, head of Dubai developer DAMAC, visiting Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

DAMAC owns the Middle East’s first Trump-branded golf course in Dubai, which opened in 2017, and the billionaire spent New Year’s with Trump in Florida.

At a press conference, Donald Trump stated that he felt Sajwani made the pledge because “he was very inspired by the election and wouldn’t have done it without the election.” The president-elect emphasized his desire to obtain investments of $1 billion or more by speeding up the environmental regulatory assessment process.

Trump enjoys making announcements that promise economic development, despite the fact that such initiatives do not usually succeed. Early in his first administration, he proposed a $10 billion Foxconn investment in a Wisconsin facility, which promised thousands of employment but was mostly abandoned.

Last month, Trump and SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son announced that the Japanese technology investor will spend $100 billion in the United States over the next four years, with a concentration on artificial intelligence.

The launch of OpenAI’s GenAI chatbot ChatGPT in late 2022 sparked a flood of investment in generative AI technology and the costly infrastructure necessary to support it, including as power production and transmission. Microsoft said last week that it will invest over $80 billion this fiscal year to increase its AI capability.

The Biden administration imposed restrictions on the sale of prized AI chips used in sophisticated data centers to China, and Trump selected China hardliners to key diplomatic and economic positions in his government.