Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, said Friday he expects data center construction to keep growing on its projected path, even though midterm voters lined up behind efforts to limit the facilities.
About 50 measures touching on data centers appeared on state ballots in 2026, and majorities favored restricting development in at least 46 of them. Hassett said the projects slated for the next couple of years are not affected by those votes.
But America is a big place, and right now, the data centers scheduled over the next couple of years aren't affected by these ballot initiatives.
Kevin Hassett, National Economic Council director
The issue weighed on voters. One survey found 56% of midterm voters called data centers a crucial or major issue, and 62% of those who rated it crucial favored the generic Democratic candidate.
Hassett predicted the facilities would keep spreading in states led by more welcoming governors. He suggested resistant states would eventually reverse course once the benefits become too obvious to ignore.
He also tied Thursday's tech-led market plunge to uncertainty over how the political shift would affect data centers, saying markets are anxious about a new majority stepping in. Still, he argued the rest of the economy is strong enough that slower data center growth would leave it booming.
Data centers are a central piece of President Donald Trump's drive to win the global race in artificial intelligence. Trump has tried to counter the industry's apparent unpopularity by rebranding the technology as super intelligence, or SI.
In a Truth Social post Friday, Trump said he fully supports the technology despite his party's midterm losses and pledged to work with states that want to get rich from it, warning that only foolish leaders would turn it down.
