Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and Hut 8 CEO Asher Genoot discuss the importance of building artificial intelligence data centers in the U.S. on 'The Claman Countdown.' #fox #media #breakingnews #us #usa #new #news #breaking #foxbusiness #theclamancountdown #ai #artificialintelligence #technology #tech #innovation #china #economy #business #louisiana #jefflandry #landry #datacenters #infrastructure #investment #energy #jobs #opportunity #america #manufacturing
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What Asher Genoot said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Hut 8 CEO Asher Genoot discussed the company's 627-acre River Bend data center under construction in Louisiana, expected to open in Q2 2027 with a 15-year lease from Fluidstack on behalf of Anthropic. Genoot emphasized building partnerships with local communities, government, and supply chain rather than just donating money. He highlighted the company's closed-loop water system and commitment to responsible development. Genoot addressed local concerns by noting the company increased water infrastructure upgrades and contributed to teacher and firefighter raises. On regulation, he stressed the importance of building responsibly and warned that if the U.S. doesn't welcome AI investment, other countries will. He framed the national question as how to stay at the forefront of technology while embracing it responsibly, citing last week's White House meeting with AI leaders as evidence of American leadership in this race.
Key takeaways
Hut 8's River Bend data center in Louisiana is expected to open in Q2 2027 with a 15-year lease from Fluidstack on behalf of Anthropic.
Hut 8 increased the parish's water infrastructure upgrade program and contributed to raises for teachers and firefighters.
Genoot said building responsibly and partnering with local communities is central to Hut 8's approach to data center development.
Fox Business alert: the growing skepticism over AI data centers is apparently having little to no impact on the buildout race, according to Goldman Sachs' newest forecast, which raises its 2026 year-end U.S. data center capacity outlook by five gigawatts to 64 gigawatts total. The forecast also predicts capacity will hit 90 gigawatts by 2027 year-end. Goldman is also estimating U.S. data center power demand will grow 38% this year, 38% next year. Hut 8 is one of the companies contributing to that massive buildout. Today, the AI and energy infrastructure platform is giving us a first look into its 627-acre River Bend data center currently under construction in Louisiana. The campus is expected to open its doors by the second quarter of next year and already signed a 15-year lease with AI infrastructure firm Fluidstack, operating on behalf of Anthropic. Joining me now in a Fox Business exclusive, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry and Hut 8 CEO Asher Genieff. Governor, you're giving data centers in Virginia a run for their money. You landed Meta's $50 billion data center for Richland Parish, now Hut 8. What is the biggest advantage you see from these data centers that has you welcoming them?
One of the things we worked on very hard was public safety, education, and tax reform, and making sure that we had permit reform in Louisiana as well. We wanted to make sure that the government did not get in the way of those who wanted to invest and build here in Louisiana. This is the next American Renaissance. This is about digital factories and beating China, and about creating great opportunity right here in Louisiana and here in America.
Okay, and you've got to tell me though, because I'm sure that the temperature of at least many in the nation is a bit of concern about this. You don't seem to have concerns that some neighbors, at least in some other states, do. What are you hearing from them?
Again, I think a lot of it is just not factual. It's fictional. This center that you're looking at behind us right now is going to use, over a one-year period, about as much water as 15 to 20 households in Louisiana use. I mean, what we've seen is these guys are innovators. They create, they design, they want to make it efficient, and so we're just not going to succumb to fictional data. We sit down, we make sure we put out a protection plan and protect our consumers. But the one thing we're doing in Louisiana which no one else is: we're building resiliency on a grid that was already failing America and Louisiana.
Asher, let's get you in here because this to me is fascinating. You are building out, and talk about demand. There is certainly demand for your stock, up more than 90% year-to-date. Clearly you're doing something right here for shareholders. Let's talk about what you're doing behind you. That construction site already has a 15-year lease on behalf of Fluidstack, on behalf of Anthropic. How did you land that? When did it all come together?
As we're building critical infrastructure for some of the leading technologies in the U.S. today, our focus is simple, and the event we're throwing on campus shows that. Bring in partners like the government, like the supply chain, the builders, the community, and bring them together to bring this campus to life. And so then we have here today, we have members from the community not standing outside protesting, but a part of us, joining us and celebrating for going into the data hall. We have the governor here, the parish president, local stakeholders, and all of the parties that are building and will consume the technology that comes out of this data center. So for us, building infrastructure is not just putting the building up. It's about building partnership and about building a legacy that doesn't only have a global impact, but has a local impact in what we're building as well.
Local impact. I do have to ask you, Governor, because there is an interesting sort of feeling when it comes to job creation. There are a lot of construction jobs that are created, thousands, with many of these data centers, and then it really kind of goes down to maybe a hundred jobs here. So what about the sort of ecosystem or the halo effect elsewhere in the surrounding areas?
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Genoot, A. (2026, October 5). AI is next 'AMERICAN RENAISSANCE': Louisiana Gov Jeff Landry [Interview transcript]. Fox Business. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3028599/
MLA
Asher Genoot. "AI is next 'AMERICAN RENAISSANCE': Louisiana Gov Jeff Landry." Fox Business, 5 Oct. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3028599/.
BibTeX
@misc{genoot2026_3028599,
author = {Asher Genoot},
title = {AI is next 'AMERICAN RENAISSANCE': Louisiana Gov Jeff Landry},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Fox Business. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {oct},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3028599/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
