‘The Oil of the Next 50 Years’ — Trump Touts AI Data Centers Delivering Wealth and Investment to Communities
Rich DupreySat, September 12, 2026 at 5:44 PM GMT+3 4 min read
Quick Read
-
Google (GOOG) doubled capex to $45 billion in a single quarter as Q2 revenue surged 24% to $120 billion and Cloud jumped 82%.
-
Trump's wealth-creator pitch ignores that U.S. electricity prices are rising 61% faster than CPI while AI power demand is set to rise 14-fold by 2028.
-
Just released. Our analysts combed the entire stock market and named the ten best stocks to buy right now, and Google didn't make the cut. Enter your email to see the names that beat GOOG. The report is free. Enter your email and see if any of your stocks made the cut.
On a recent appearance on Laura Ingraham's The Ingraham Angle, President Trump called AI data centers "the oil of the next 50 years," arguing the buildout is delivering wealth and investment to American communities. He singled out Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) for building one in Europe, specifically Finland, and said he "wasn't happy about that." He also claimed the community backlash against data centers was a PR campaign run by China.
The framing lands squarely on Google CEO Sundar Pichai, whose own words on the Q2 FY2026 call describe a company building the physical layer of that new economy at unprecedented scale.
Pichai Frames AI as a Secular Shift
On the July 22, 2026 call, Pichai told analysts: "It feels like we are in very early innings of what feels like secular shift across multiple areas in our core information businesses." He added that Google is "supply constrained" and that "the demand still outpaces that investment."
The financials support the framing. Q2 revenue reached $119.80 billion, up 24.2% year over year, with Google Cloud accelerating to $24.77 billion, up 82%. Cloud backlog hit $514 billion, and nearly 90% of the Fortune 100 use Gemini Enterprise. EPS came in at $9.11 against a $3.0427 estimate.
Free Report, Just Released
Why Didn't GOOG Make The Top 10 List?
24/7 Wall St has helped investors make money for over two decades, and our top analysts just finished ranking the definitive Top 10 Stocks To Buy Now. Not the ten biggest companies. Not the ten everyone is arguing about. The ten best stocks to buy right now.
And GOOG didn't make the cut!
The report is free, and you can see why we think each stock is a top investment today.
Enter Your Email and See the Ten →
Capex at $45 Billion in One Quarter
Pichai said the payoff justifies the spend: "Our AI investments are redefining what's possible across every part of our business." Q2 capital expenditures hit $44.92 billion, up 100.14% year over year, driving free cash flow to negative $5.855 billion. Long-term debt jumped from $46.5 billion to $98.2 billion, and full-year 2026 capex is guided to $175 billion to $185 billion.
Finland: Google's Largest European AI Bet
The Finland project Trump referenced is Google's single largest AI investment in Europe, a €13 billion ($15.1 billion) commitment across 2027 and 2028 that includes a 22-year nuclear power deal covering up to 50% of Fortum's Loviisa plant output through 2050. The project is projected to add roughly €3.6 billion to Finnish GDP during construction and support 7,000 jobs annually once operational, the same wealth-transfer template Trump wants pointed at U.S. towns.
Community Costs the Pitch Skips
Trump's Chinese-PR theory glosses over hard numbers. U.S. electricity prices rose 6.1% year over year, roughly 61% faster than CPI's 3.8%, and AI data-center draw is projected to rise 14-fold by 2028 to 12% of U.S. electricity consumption. That is landing on households already absorbing inflation from Iran-war supply-chain disruption.
All of that power draw has to be delivered, cooled, and networked by somebody, and the suppliers behind the buildout are the less obvious way to play it. We pulled together seven of them, none of which are chipmakers, in a free report here: 7 Stocks Powering the AI Boom (That Aren't Chipmakers).
Pichai's own posture on returns: "Our goal is to invest as long as we see an attractive return on that investment." Shares are up 39.68% over the past year. Whether the "oil" analogy holds depends on who ends up paying the utility bill.
Got $1,000? Before You Buy GOOG, Read This
If you have cash sitting in your account right now, give this two minutes. After more than two decades of helping investors beat the market, our top analysts at 24/7 Wall St. put together a definitive report on the Top 10 Stocks To Buy Today. And GOOG wasn't one of them.
They combed the entire market. It's not 10 ideas, not 10 stocks everyone is talking about, it's what their research points to as the 10 best stocks to buy right now, and it's free. Read more here and see which stocks made the list -->>
Contact editorial@247wallst.com for any questions or corrections.
Yorumlar (0)
Giriş yaparak yorum yazabilirsin.
İlk yorumu sen yaz.