Former President Donald Trump said American artificial intelligence (AI) companies will need nuclear gas and nuclear power to beat Chinese competitors during an interview released Monday.

In an interview with Shawn Ryan of the “Shawn Ryan Show,” Trump said that natural gas and nuclear power will need to expand in the U.S. to meet the surging electricity demand that tech companies are helping to drive with new, power-hungry data centers needed to enable AI technologies. Providing American AI innovators with cheap, reliable electricity will enable U.S. firms to compete with and potentially defeat Chinese companies in the race for dominance in the crucial technology, Trump said.

“How are we going to compete with China in the artificial intelligence space if we don’t up our energy production? Ryan asked Trump.

Trump began his answer by referring to Vice President Kamala Harris as a “Marxist” and asserting that he does not think American tech companies could compete with Chinese firms if a prospective Harris administration is setting U.S. energy policies. He proceeded to speak about how much electricity generation will be required to sustain an AI boom that would make America the global leader in the technology.

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“If we’re not going to be the big player, then China is going to take over that industry very easily. And the problem is, we have to produce massive electricity that we don’t have. But the environmental impact statements won’t allow us to do that. The rules and regulations that we currently have won’t allow us to do any of it, not a tiny fraction of it,” Trump said.

“But if I’m president, we’ll be able to do it, and we’ll do it through natural gas — which is clean — and we’ll do it through, primarily, natural gas and nuclear. You know, nuclear now, has become very good, very safe,” Trump continued. “You build the smaller plants and you attach them. But nuclear is very powerful, very good. …. We will create tremendous electricity for our country. And that will allow AI to compete, and you’re right, whoever gets that, it’s going to be a big advantage, you know, that’s sort of going to be the oil of the future. And we have to be the main player.”

Communist Party Talent Program Scooped Up Former Microsoft Researchers. Now They Work In China’s AI Industryhttps://t.co/93iFS2fxAp

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 2, 2024

Data centers are a leading contributor to increasing estimates for future electricity demand over the coming years, complemented by other policies pushing electrification, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Almost every regional power market in the country increased their projections for five-year annualized electricity demand growth between 2022 and 2023, with the rate of growth doubling in some markets, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The Biden administration has also imposed an aggressive set of regulations for power plants that some grid experts have warned will seriously jeopardize longer-term grid reliability if implemented. Republican state attorneys general and a leading utilities trade association have sued the federal government to challenge the rules.

Goldman Sachs projects that American power demand will grow by about 2.4% between 2022 and 2030, with data centers driving an overall increase of 0.9%.

Power grid experts and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Commissioner Mark Christie have warned with varying degrees of urgency that the U.S. is retiring reliable fossil fuel-fired capacity faster than it is being replaced, while also pursuing policies that will increase electricity demand in the long-term.