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a screenshot of a CSPAN feed showing Trump next to billionaire Hussain Sajwani at a podium in Mar-a-Lago

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President - elect Donald Trump has announced thatHussain Sajwani , an Emirati billionaire businessman who founded the prop ontogeny giant DAMAC Properties , will empower $ 20 billion in young data centers across the United States .

The first phase of the multi - year investment will fund data point centers in Arizona , Illinois , Indiana , Louisiana , Michigan , Ohio , Oklahoma , and Texas , Trump said during a press conference at his Mar - a - Lago home on Tuesday . The data centers will in the first place support AI and cloud engineering science .

“ We ’ve been expect for yr to increase our investment in the U.S. , ” Sajwani said . “ We ’re stress to invest $ 20 billion , and [ potentially ] even more than that . ”

No further details about the investment were disclosed during the press group discussion .

It ’s significant to notice that the mountain may amount to nothing . interchangeable investment toast have fizzled out in the past . In 2017 , then - President Trump and Wisconsin ’s then - regulator Scott Walker herald that Formosan producer Foxconn would spend $ 10 billion for a campus near Milwaukee . Within months , Foxconn began scaling back its plans . Wisconsin Public Radioreported that by the end of 2022 , the Saratoga chip giant create about 1,000 Job in Wisconsin — far from the 13,000 it promised — and spent only $ 1 billion as of the beginning of 2023 .

cornet has been a outspoken critic of theCHIPS Act , one of the signature policy achievements of the forthcoming Biden presidential term . The Act set aside $ 39 billion in grants , plus25 % tax creditsand billion more in loan , to rejuvenate American semiconductor manufacturing after 10 of yield shifting to Asia .

Trump and other Republicans , including Mike Johnson ( R - LA ) , who was narrowly reelected as House Speaker last workweek , have threatened to countermand the CHIPS Act . In an interview with Joe Rogan last October , Trump accused Taiwan of stealing “ our chipping line ” and call for duty on imported semiconductor .

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The CHIPS Act , which go by with bipartisan support in 2022 , draw in investment from all five of the human race ’s top advanced chipmakers . caller have pledge to spend more than 10 metre the Act ’s subsidisation total , grant to Bloomberg .

A phone number of technical school loss leader have call for the U.S. to up its investing in data shopping center substructure , particularly as the AI diligence continues to get at an volatile pace . AI systems need enormous computing resources to develop and go at scale .

Microsoft , which late say it was on rail to expend $ 80 billion on AI data centers , said in a recentblog postpenned by president Brad Smith that the company ’s winner look on “ new partnership founded on large - ordered series substructure investments . ”

“ The United States is poise to stand at the forefront of this newfangled technology wave , especially if it double down on its strengths and effectively partners internationally , ” Smith wrote . “ The incoming Administration can tone up [ its ] foundational element , build on the employment from President Trump ’s first term . ”

In aninterviewwith Bloomberg published Sunday , OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that there ’s “ a real opportunity ” for the Trump disposal to “ to do something much better [ than the CHIPS Act ] as a follow - on . ”

“ I do n’t think the Chips Act has been as effectual as any of us hope , ” Altman said . “ The matter I really deeply agree with [ President Trump ] on is , it is wild how difficult it has become to build things in the United States . Power plants , information centers , any of that kind of material . I understand how bureaucratic cruft builds up , but it ’s not helpful to the country in general . ”