Recently President Donald Trump has been advertising Alabama to the data center industry.
Hours after New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order pausing new state environmental permits for hyperscale data centers, Trump posted on Truth Social that the companies she turned away “are now being sought in Alabama, Florida, Texas, Arizona” and beyond. The taxes and jobs at stake, he wrote, amount to “LIQUID GOLD!” Alabama led the list.
Two days earlier in Opelika, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) made the same case at home.
Data center tax revenue, he told the Alabama Sheriffs Association, is one way a state that is not yet rich funds schools, jails, mental health services and law enforcement. He also said some opposition circulating online was coming from China.
“I mean, they’re listening to all this nonsense they see on social media that’s coming from China because China does not want us to grow. The state of Alabama will grow. We’re going to do data centers,” Tuberville said.
State Sen. Sam Givhan (R-Huntsville) told WVNN’s Dale Jackson that constituents rarely raise the issue face-to-face, yet his inbox filled during the legislative session with messages that “were all from emails that were generated by some third party.”
That does not make every objection artificial. Questions about land use, power costs, water demand, tax incentives and local notice are legitimate. But the broader information environment is real. The New York Times reported this month that actors linked to China, Russia and Iran have sought to exploit American opposition to AI data centers, while researchers identified inauthentic accounts circulating state-specific anti-data-center content.
That helps explain why elected officials increasingly view the backlash with skepticism and through a national-security lens. The United States is competing to build the computing power and electricity supply required for advanced artificial intelligence. Slowing data centers can also slow new generation and domestic manufacturing.
What the political argument often skips is how the power is procured.
Meta’s Montgomery project is the working model. The company is building a hyperscale campus off Interstate 65 near the Hyundai assembly plant and has committed to matching 100% of the facility’s electricity use with clean energy.
The generation behind that commitment includes Stockton I and Stockton II, two solar facilities totaling 260 megawatts in north Baldwin County. Silicon Ranch is developing the projects on a 4,500-acre timber tract. Roughly 2,000 acres will contain energy infrastructure and pasture, while the rest is planned for conservation.
Alabama Power will purchase the electricity and renewable energy credits. A Meta-linked subsidiary tied to the Montgomery campus is the subscribing customer, and Alabama Power says that customer will cover the project’s costs rather than shifting them to other customers.
The customer creating the demand is also helping finance the generation.
The electricity enters Alabama Power’s wider system, and solar output varies by time of day and weather. But the contract adds new generation to the same system serving the new load.
The project also turns the data-center buildout into an Alabama manufacturing story. Silicon Ranch and Alabama Power say the Stockton facilities will use solar modules made by First Solar at its Lawrence County plant, which employs more than 800 Alabamians. The development is also expected to support hundreds of construction jobs and generate local tax revenue.
Alabama can host the data center, build the generation its demand helps finance, manufacture the equipment used by that generation and retain the construction and utility work connected to both. Data-center growth can create demand across several of Alabama’s existing strengths: manufacturing, construction, energy and project execution.
The same pattern is visible elsewhere. Meta’s Huntsville data center helped support major solar development in north Alabama and Tennessee. Google’s Jackson County campus occupies the site of TVA’s retired Widows Creek coal plant, and Google is supporting the planned Hermes 2 advanced nuclear project through TVA.
The same corporate demand pulling Alabama-made solar panels into Baldwin County is helping pull next-generation nuclear power into the Tennessee Valley.
The Legislature spent the spring writing rules for the larger energy question.
HB399, sponsored by State Rep. Leigh Hulsey (R-Helena), reduces the standard maximum data center tax abatement from 30 years to 20 beginning in 2027, with another decade available for projects that invest in local infrastructure, broadband, water systems or schools.
SB270, sponsored by State Sen. Lance Bell (R-Riverside), requires Public Service Commission review of large-load data center contracts to ensure the customer covers the incremental power costs it creates and provides benefits to other utility customers.
The Power to the People Act, HB475, freezes regulated electric base rates through 2028, creates a cabinet-level Secretary of Energy and requires public discussion of utility costs, reliability and infrastructure planning.
Alabama did not respond to the data-center debate with a statewide freeze. It began defining the terms.
The tradeoffs should not be minimized. Large energy projects change land use and deserve clear answers about drainage, wetlands, decommissioning, grid effects and who receives the economic benefit.
The full accounting matters too. The Stockton project uses private land and private capital. The subscribing customer covers the contractual costs. The principal equipment will be manufactured in Lawrence County. Construction work and property-tax revenue will remain in Baldwin County. The data center supported by the arrangement will pay taxes in Montgomery.
That is the feedback loop Alabama has an opportunity to capture.
The state can insist that data centers pay their own way while using their demand to finance more generation, support Alabama manufacturing and deepen the capabilities required for the next economy. Scrutiny and development do not have to be opposing positions.
New York spent the week freezing that pipeline. Alabama is planting.
Sawyer Knowles is a state and political reporter for Yellowhammer News. You can contact him at [email protected].
