Trump Touts New $20B Data Center Investment In US

‘We’re planning to invest $20 billion and even more than that if the opportunity and the market allow us. At the moment, we’re planning $20 billion in data center catering for the AI and cloud business for the hyperscalers,' DAMAC Properties founder Hussain Sajwani said Tuesday.

President-elect Donald Trump said billionaire Emirati businessman Hussain Sajwani, founder of real estate development firm DAMAC Properties, will invest $20 billion “over a very short period of time” to build data centers in the U.S. south and midwest aimed at serving the needs of hyperscale customers.

“I’m thrilled to announced that DAMAC will be investing at least $20 billion over a very short period of time into the United States and they may go double or even somewhat more than double that amount of money,” Trump told reporters during the first new conference since the results of the 2024 U.S. presidential election were certified.

Speaking from his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., the incoming U.S. president said Sajwani was “inspired” to make the investment by the results of the election. The first phase of the project will take place in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana.

“We’ve been waiting four years to increase our investment in the U.S. to a very large amount of money,” Sajwani told reporters. “We’re planning to invest $20 billion and even more than that if the opportunity and the market allow us. At the moment we’re planning $20 billion in data center catering for the AI and cloud business for the hyperscalers.”

DAMAC is a development company based in the United Arab Emirates and operating in more than 20 countries around the world. During the press conference, Sajwani said DAMAC has delivered more than 45,000 luxury units with another 45,000 in the pipeline.

“In data center we are in 10 countries around the world, in Asia and Middle East. We are very, very excited now with his leadership and his open strategy to encourage businesses to come to the U.S.,” Sajwani said.

Trump highlighted the investment as proof of the early success of his administration in wooing business investors with the promise of “expedited reviews” on project worth greater than $1billion.

“Hussein, we’re going to work with you to make sure everything goes smoothly,” Trump told Sajwani.

Data center providers have previously told CRN that in their industry, electricity and available real estate were in high demand before generative AI. And now the size and power requirements of the GPU’s stack are pushing demand higher.

In recent months, Alvin Ngyuen, senior analyst at Forrester, told CRN that while the demand for data center space is at a high point now, communities are beginning to push back against the resource-heavy computer plants.

“Some areas have restricted data center development due to not having enough power to supply the data centers, residents and other businesses,” he told CRN via email. “This means the power demands for generative AI may exceed the ability of the power infrastructure to support it and the broader market as well.”

Enterprises will have only a couple of choices: go to the cloud for whatever service availability they can get or wait for space and power to become available either with on- premises or with a colocation partner, he told CRN.