Gov. Brian Kemp weighed in on the rush to develop artificial intelligence, calling the technology “scary” while also welcoming data centers to Georgia and criticizing others who would pause their development.
“I’m not saying we need a data center in every community that’s out there, but to have a moratorium just like the governor of New York did and what Keisha Lance Bottoms is proposing — to me, is irresponsible,” Kemp said in a video interview with POLITICO Energy published Monday.
The Georgia governor, who is nearing the end of his final term, may have been referring to a video interview given by Bottoms in April to the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.
At the time, the former Atlanta mayor was competing in a crowded primary to win the Democratic nomination for governor, which she subsequently won in May.
“If I have the privilege of being elected governor, I am going to ask for a pause in construction on data centers throughout the state,” Bottoms said. “Give us an opportunity to understand exactly where we are. Are we on the right track or do we need to scale back?”
Kemp said data centers can generate local tax revenue and other benefits and that communities rather than the state should decide where they are built.
“We don’t need to try to push these things where people don’t want them,” he said in the interview conducted last week, “but to say that we’re just going to have a blanket moratorium — to me, is indeed insane.”
Kemp said he was concerned about the effect of AI on children and on security.
“Some of the things that are very scary when you think about national defense, cybersecurity issues, and other things,” he said. “But I’m more concerned about China winning this race and using all those things against us economically, militarily.”
Kemp said some data centers had been announced or even started working “in the dead of the night.”
That is not the case with the $20 billion data center that OpenAI announced for an industrial site in Effingham County near Savannah last week, he said, adding that the company had met with local officials and utilities in advance.
The public learned of the company’s plans Wednesday, when residents were given a one-day notice that the company would be holding an open house about its planned facility.
Beth Remmes, with the environmental group Georgia Interfaith Power & Light, attended the event. It featured information tables with company representatives who gave sometimes vague information, she said.
Remmes said she and others were concerned about the use of noisy and polluting diesel-fueled generators for backup power.
“They said they do have diesel generators, but they are just backing up a small part of the system, but what is a small part of a $20 billion system?” Remmes said. “That’s what I would like to see written down and explained.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat, an initiative of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
