The race for governor in Alabama is turning, in large part, on a question few voters thought about two years ago: whether the state should roll out the red carpet for the data centers powering the artificial intelligence boom, or slow down and demand answers first.
Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville, the frontrunner, says full speed ahead. Democrat Doug Jones, the former senator, says hit the brakes — at least until Alabama knows what these facilities will cost its water, its power grid and its taxpayers.
Tuberville: “The AI Race Is the Space Race”
Speaking to reporters Thursday morning, Tuberville said Alabama should move aggressively to become a national leader in data centers and artificial intelligence. He had already staked out the position the week before, telling Alabama sheriffs that data centers are a “gold mine” of tax revenue the state should harness rather than avoid.
“Alabama is going to be a national leader on this, not China, not the Communist Democrats, and not these blue states,” Tuberville said. “The AI race is the Space Race for the 21st century.”
He said the state already hosts about 20 data centers — some the size of a Walmart, others spanning 20 football fields — with more planned in Bessemer, Birmingham, Huntsville, Tuscaloosa, Dothan and Auburn. Most Alabamians, he argued, have never noticed them.
But Tuberville also sought to draw a line between his approach and a free-for-all. He pledged that no Alabamian would pay “a single cent more” on their energy bill because of a data center, said developers should be required to use recycled water rather than fresh drinking supplies, and argued tech companies — not ratepayers — should pay for the grid improvements their facilities demand.
“My pledge to every single Alabamian is that I will protect Alabamians from paying a single cent more for their energy as a result of a data center moving to their community,” he said. “We’re going to do this the right way because I want to make sure Alabama taxpayers get a great deal.”
He pointed to Google’s facility in Scottsboro as the model: 15 years of operation, more than a million dollars in investment funneled to Jackson County schools, and a planned $1.5 billion expansion that he said would generate more than 1,000 jobs. Tax revenue, he said, must be “invested in the local communities that they are in, and not end up in the pockets of politicians.”
Tuberville dismissed much of the opposition as misinformation, arguing China is waging a social media campaign to convince Americans to oppose data centers. “We need somewhere to secure and store our data,” he said. “Otherwise, it will go to other states like these blue states, or it will go to China.” His office did not answer follow-up questions about how his policy would handle tax abatements for AI investments.
Jones: “No Secret Deals, No Blank Checks”
Jones staked out the opposite ground in an op-ed published Wednesday, July 22, arguing the state should impose a temporary pause on new data center construction until stronger guardrails exist. He accused Tuberville of spreading “conspiracy theories” to wave away legitimate community concerns.
“Apparently, asking questions and raising community concerns now makes you a socialist,” Jones wrote. “At least that’s what you’d believe if you listened to some of the arguments being made by Tommy Tuberville and his supporters against a temporary pause in Alabama’s rush to approve AI data centers.”
The questions Jones listed were the ones that have roiled town halls across the state: how much water the facilities will consume, who pays for the power and infrastructure, what tax incentives are being offered and what taxpayers get in return.
“Alabamians deserve to know who will be getting the gold and who will get the shaft,” Jones wrote. “Alabama should welcome investment. We should welcome innovation. But welcoming investment is not the same thing as surrendering our precious natural resources and possibly our quality of life.”
He said any moratorium should be used to strengthen transparency and ethics laws — including a ban on public officials or their immediate families profiting from data center projects. “No secret deals. No blank checks. No tax giveaways without real jobs. No higher utility bills for Alabama families,” Jones wrote. “The issue is whether Alabama has enough self-respect to ask the tough questions and demand answers before it does. That, folks, is democracy, not socialism, at work.”
The Gulf Coast as Testing Ground
The debate is not abstract on the Gulf Coast, which has become one of the first testing grounds for Alabama’s reckoning with the industry. In north Baldwin County, plans surfaced earlier this year for a solar field on 4,600 acres near Stockton that would generate clean-energy credits supporting a massive Meta data complex under construction in Montgomery — an $800 million project backed by $42 million in state job and investment tax credits. The solar proposal sparked a property-rights fight that ended with locals rushing to pass a zoning referendum to block it.
In Mobile County, a $6 billion data center is slated for Calvert. In Prichard, residents have packed meetings to oppose a proposed $90 million Edged Energy facility on Telegraph Road, collecting more than 4,000 signatures on a petition and pushing the city council toward a moratorium. Foley, meanwhile, froze data center applications for six months before anyone had even applied.
With the general election in November, both campaigns have made clear the issue will not fade: Tuberville promising to control the boom on Alabama’s terms, Jones promising to make Alabama ask what the boom will cost before it arrives.