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- [00:01]
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Stephen Overlea
So if California has Silicon Valley, what's it called in Mississippi? Silicon Delta.
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Tate Reeves
The Digital Delta.
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Stephen Overlea
The Digital Delta.
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Tate Reeves
How does that sound?
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Stephen Overlea
I like.
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Tate Reeves
You know what?
- [00:38]
Stephen Overlea
Alliteration is good. Hey, welcome back to POLITICO Tech. I'm your host, Stephen Overlea. Mississippi is trying to position itself as, quote, the Digital Delta, a hub in the American south where tech companies will build data centers, develop artificial intelligence, and basically usher in the next industrial revolution. That's the message Republican Governor Tate Reeves brought to Washington last week, which is where I sat down with him ahead of a big AI Expo. Now, Reeves isn't the only governor hoping to turn AI into a boon for their state economy. In fact, states like Mississippi that largely missed out on the Internet gold rush now see a chance to build their own version of Silicon Valley. On the show today, Reeves tells me more about the Digital Delta taking shape in Mississippi and where he thinks federal policymakers can help out and butt out. Here's our conversation. Governor Reeves, thanks for joining me on POLITICO Tech.
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Tate Reeves
It's awesome to be here. Thanks for having me on.
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Stephen Overlea
Now you're in Washington. That's where we're chatting. I know one of your main messages while you're here is that Mississippi and the American south will be leaders in the next transformation of the national economy. Right. The next sort of industrial transformation. Sell that to me. Why is that the case?
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Tate Reeves
Well, first of all, let me say I'm not surprised that you need selling, and I won't be surprised if most everyone here in Washington, D.C. needs selling. The reality is that when you think about the technological boom that is coming and you think about the large amounts of stuff that is needed for this AI boom that is going to occur, all of these large hyperscale data centers as an example, you think about what they need. They need lots of energy, right? They need lots of water. They need talented and skilled workers. And in the American south and in Mississippi specifically, we have all of those. And we have an energy policy in Mississippi. I just had a Mississippi's power play recently, and our view on available power is the states that understand the need for power in the future are going to win and all the other states are going to lose.
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Stephen Overlea
And so what is it about Mississippi, your power that puts you ahead of the rest of the.
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Tate Reeves
Well, because we have available power, these large hyperscale data centers, all of this AI technology, all of these supercomputers, and quite frankly, the advanced manufacturing that goes along with it, which really has me excited. They all require tremendous amounts of energy, tremendous amounts of power to actually get the supercomputing done. And there's not a lot of available power in a lot of states around the country. And the south, particularly Mississippi, I would argue, has that availability. We have excess capacity. And we are in the process, through Mississippi's power play, of streamlining our regulatory environment to make it easier to build more power. I mean, literally, these things can take. These large centers can take literally a gigawatt of power, which is a lot, and there's not a lot available. So our energy policy in Mississippi is if it's available and it's affordable and it's reliable, we're for it. So we think we're well positioned because of that.
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Stephen Overlea
And now here in Washington, as I'm sure you know, Congress is looking to potentially roll back some energy tax credits, make changes to kind of how Washington incentivizes that kind of energy development. Do you anticipate an impact on Mississippi from that, if that all comes to pass?
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Tate Reeves
Well, we're obviously monitoring it very closely. You know, again, we believe in an all of the above strategy. We don't think government has to pick winners and losers. In fact, we think it's generally bad when government tries to pick winners and losers, mainly because government is particularly bad at it. But generally speaking, if government will get out of the way, if the regulatory environment is positive, if the capital investment makes sense, and if there's a return on investment to be made, the private sector will do it, and that's what we support.
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Stephen Overlea
Speaking of the regulatory environment, I know you signed the first AI executive order in Mississippi back in January. Part of that sort of talks about the idea of a framework for AI, what that should look like, what rules of anything the state should put in place. What do you think a framework ought to look like?
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Tate Reeves
Well, you know, I think we have to be careful and realize that today's technology may not be the technology that is utilized five years from now, and it may not be the technology that is utilized five months from now.
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Stephen Overlea
Right. It's moving fast.
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Tate Reeves
It's moving very, very fast. And so when you try to codify things through statutory schemes, whether it's in Congress or in our state legislatures, you end up putting Yourself in a very risky situation. And so what I tried to do in crafting my executive order is, number one, to do it in such a way. That said, first of all, Mississippi's interested. Mississippi is on top of this. Mississippi is going to be a leader in. In the AI space. Everything from investments to workforce and everything in between. But we tried to do it in a way that we didn't limit ourselves if the technology changes in the future. We also wanted to state that some states and some individuals see this AI technology as a risk. We actually see it as an opportunity.
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Stephen Overlea
Okay.
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Tate Reeves
We see it as. It can be both, potentially, it can be both. But you hear a lot of talk about AI specifically replacing humans in the workforce, and there will be some of that. But for those states, and my executive order tried to acknowledge this, for those states who recognize that AI is going to happen whether we want it to or not, and the best thing we can do is prepare for it and prepare our workforce for it. I think those are the states that are going to be successful and going to capitalize on the opportunities because it does bring with it some risk. But if you understand that the opportunities exist, you understand that this AI technology is going to be utilized across virtually every realm of our economy. So we, for example, in Mississippi, we have a very strong manufacturing base where we know in the future that the advanced manufacturing world is going to incorporate AI technologies to. To make them more efficient. We've got to have a system in place where we are training the workers that can deal with that for the future. I say it all the time. We have to focus on training our workers for the jobs not of the last 50 years, but the jobs of the next 50 years.
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Stephen Overlea
Well, you know, there's been all these headlines recently. The anthropic CEO, anthropic big AI company, made comments that, you know, he sort of predicted by 2030, AI could lead to unemployment of 20% and that political leaders, business leaders, weren't really prepared for that reality. I mean, it sounds like you are trying to prepare for that reality. Is that a concern that there will be mass unemployment?
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Tate Reeves
Well, I think that's certainly one person's opinion, and I think that there is no doubt that there are going to be areas that are currently manned by a human, if you will, that may not be in the future. But in America, we've seen that play out over and over and over. We didn't have automobiles always. And so the technological booms that have led to automobiles and so many other things in our economy is something that we have dealt with in our country. And so we're trying to get ahead of that. In fact, if you look at the entity that has been created in Mississippi, we call it Maine, which is the Mississippi AI network.
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Stephen Overlea
Okay.
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Tate Reeves
And it is a network of high schools, community colleges, and our eight institutions of higher learning. And they are working together to train the workforce that's going to deal with these AI technologies.
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Stephen Overlea
There's something I'd be curious to get your take on as a governor, which is recently in Washington, One of the big tech stories is that the House, in passing their reconciliation bill, included a moratorium on states enacting and enforcing AI laws that would last for 10 years, which is a long time by tech development standards, certainly. What are your feelings on that? I mean, is that Washington's place to tell you what to pass and how to enforce a law?
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Tate Reeves
Well, I certainly understand the concerns that led to that language being in the reconciliation bill. However, typically it is the Democrats who believe in centralized decision making. Typically, it is the democrats in Washington, D.C. that think the best decisions are made by people in Washington, D.C. typically, the Republicans think that individuals, first and foremost, are better at making decisions than anybody in Washington, D.C. are. But we also believe that we allow our states to make policies that are in the state's best interest. Now, I understand the concerns in Washington that there are certain states maybe that would make it virtually impossible for technology to advance, and so you want to limit that. And so there's a push and a pull there, and one that we've got to work through the details as this bill goes to the United States Senate. But again, generally, typically, we believe in individualized decisions. We believe states need to be making these decisions rather than anybody or any bureaucrat in Washington.
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Stephen Overlea
Why do you think AI is different?
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Tate Reeves
Well, I don't necessarily think AI is different, I guess.
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Stephen Overlea
Why do you think Republicans are treating it differently?
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Tate Reeves
That's something you'd have to ask the members of Congress who slipped that into the bill. I do think the concern is valid that there are certain states that are so large that they could place constraints on technology that would affect not only other states, would infect the entire country and perhaps the world. And so I understand those concerns and how they need to be at least addressed.
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Stephen Overlea
You mentioned that you created this AI network for community colleges, universities in the state of Mississippi. Right now, one thing we're seeing at the federal level as well is pulling back on funding for some research in the sciences, in technology, putting more pressure on the states perhaps to invest in those areas. What do you make of that? Are you worried about any impact on research in your own state as you look to advance in AI?
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Tate Reeves
Well, we've actually had multiple conversations with folks in the Commerce Department in the Trump administration and other places, and what we are trying to encourage the administration to focus on is workforce development and workforce training. I think some of the investments that are made by the federal government in certain research make sense. Some of it doesn't make sense. And I think you've got to look at that on a case by case basis. But what always makes sense is training workers for the jobs of tomorrow. The way we describe it in is that our AI network, ME is really set up to ensure that we can have our workers and our workforce in Mississippi transition into AI augmented positions rather than being displaced. And I think that's really where the federal government investing in states who want to do that will help curtail any potential unemployment that you talked about earlier because some of the positions are going to be displaced. And just like there were certain positions displaced when we didn't make as many wagons and we made more automobiles.
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Stephen Overlea
And when you think about these jobs of the future, you know, the especially these well paying jobs you'd like to see in Mississippi, are any of those building AI, developing AI? I mean, do you want this technology to be built in your state or just sort of deployed in your state?
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Tate Reeves
No, we want to do all of the above. There are multiple companies that are headquartered in Mississippi that are investing in the building of the AI space. We are working on a pilot program with one of my state agencies in a private sector entity right now that has the potential to literally transform the way in which certain programs in government are operated. And the partnership between multiple companies, but again, headquartered in Mississippi has a way in which to accomplish that. And literally if they are successful and if they reach their targets, they could hire thousands of people in the actual development of AI in A1 specific area. You know, there's going to be tremendous amount of opportunities and job opportunities. And the great thing about these is these aren't your 25 to $50,000 a year jobs. These are very high paying jobs, but yet people that want to do them, that want to get trained, can get trained to do it. And that's the reason we're taking a holistic approach in that we're going to fund through what I call my Mississippi AI Talent Accelerator program, which is a $10 million initiative. We're investing in programs all the way up to our institution of higher learning so that we can have master's degrees, we can have undergraduate degrees, we can have those working in the community colleges to get the degrees that are needed for running fiber and things such as that, all the way towards K through 12 entities and teaching kids what opportunities exist.
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Stephen Overlea
You know, I want to ask you then on that front about another federal policy that I think is most acutely felt in the states, but it relates to what's happening right now around student visas for international students. When I talk to folks in tech, you know, they do talk about the fact that a lot of STEM talent, a lot of STEM graduates are foreign born individuals who come here to study and potentially work. When you think about Mississippi, when you think about your workforce, I mean, is there a potential impact of the crackdown right now on international student visas?
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Tate Reeves
Well, first of all, I think we need to train more talented people in the United States to do these jobs. I do believe that we have the talent, we've just got to have the focus. Having said that, I think we also should allow opportunities for kids from around the world to enter into our country legally in the right way, particularly and specifically those who are not known for their hatred of our country. And that I think describes and identifies the vast majority of foreigners who move into our country to study. And so I think that you can do both. And, and it's not an either or answer here. And so I think, and I think that's what the administration should focus on.
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Stephen Overlea
And so in terms of like the road ahead here, especially with the Trump administration, sounds like you're talking with folks in the administration regularly. What else would you like to see from Washington as you are trying to build this tech south?
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Tate Reeves
Well, I think that any pro business policies that come out of Washington D.C. is a very good thing. The so called big one big beautiful bill is incredibly important because the fact is we do not need a multi trillion dollar tax increase on small business owners and entrepreneurs in Mississippi that I mentioned earlier that are investing in technology, investing in training their own workers. And so there are general policies that the Congress needs to get enacted. The one big beautiful bill, whatever version that comes out of the United States Senate and ultimately is discussed by the US House of Representatives, needs to ensure that we see significant economic growth in our country that is imperative to our nation's future. But it's very difficult for our state to be successful if our country's not.
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Stephen Overlea
You know, when we think about tech in the United States, we think about first and foremost for many people, Silicon Valley right in California. And as you said, you're sort of here making this sale that the south can really lead here. There's a networking effect in tech. You know, tech companies, tech workers attract more tech companies attract more tech workers. That is a small scale right now in Mississippi and in a lot of states. So how do you build? And I mean, I know the policies we've talked about so far, but in terms of those network effects kind of snowballing, this. How does that, how does that happen?
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Tate Reeves
Well, I think you have to have a catalyst. You have to have something big happen in your state, which sends the message to the rest of the industry that, hey, what did they notice that we haven't yet noticed? And for Mississippi, that was the announcement a year and three months ago that Amazon Web Services was going to invest over $10 billion in in Central Mississippi. That really was the catalyst for our state. They've committed to hiring at least 1,000 employees. And look, I think those employees are going to make 70 to 80 to $90,000 a year in a state like Mississippi that is very, very affordable. And so once AWS made that particular announcement, then a lot of their competitors started taking notice and said, well, what did AWS see that we have not yet seen? And because of that, it has led to significant partnerships for the state of Mississippi, but also significant additional economic development opportunities. Other companies looking at Mississippi, we announced Compass Data Centers just a few months ago, which is an over $10 billion capital investment in Meridian, Mississippi, which is about 90 miles to the east of where AWS is locating. But it's not just in Mississippi. I like to use the example of my friends at xai. XAI is locating their major facility and building it as we speak. As you may know in their announcement said Memphis, Tennessee. Well, some people think Memphis is the second is the largest city in Mississippi, even though it is actually located in Tennessee. But their facility at XAI is actually in Whitehaven, which is less than three miles north of the Mississippi state line. Meta has announced a $10 billion investment in Louisiana, which is actually less than 50 miles from the Mississippi river in the Mississippi state line. And so you're seeing this and so what we're looking at here is, is well over $50 billion having been invested in the mid south, all of which are either in the state of Mississippi or within a 50 mile radius of our borders. And because of that, again, as you mentioned, there is a sense in the industry that they tend to cluster around one another. That cluster is happening and the center of that cluster is Jackson, Mississippi. And there's a reason for that as well. The reason for that is because we have available power, we have available water, but we also have a fiber network that runs from New York to Atlanta and Atlanta to Dallas, and that we also have a fiber network that runs from New Orleans to Chicago. And that fiber network meets about three miles to the southwest of the Mississippi State Capitol in my office.
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Stephen Overlea
Wow.
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Tate Reeves
And so we have some unique advantages. Some technology companies have figured that out, some are figuring it out. And we're here to, we're here at this conference to tell the rest of the industry, hey, maybe you ought to look in Mississippi.
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Stephen Overlea
So if California has Silicon Valley, what's it called in Mississippi? Silicon Delta.
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Tate Reeves
The Digital Delta.
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Stephen Overlea
The Digital Delta.
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Tate Reeves
How does that sound?
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Stephen Overlea
I like. You know what alliteration is good for marketing.
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Tate Reeves
My head of the Mississippi Development Authority, which is my economic development arm, is a gentleman named Bill Cork. And he is just doing an incredible job, but he came up with the Digital Delta and so we're going to go with it.
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Stephen Overlea
Got it. All right. Well, governor of the Digital Delta, thanks for being here on Politico Tech.
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Tate Reeves
Thank you for having me on.
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Stephen Overlea
That's all for this week's Politico Tech. If you like the show, please subscribe and recommend it to a friend or colleague. And for more tech news, subscribe to our newsletters, Digital Future Daily and morning Tech. Music in our show comes from the mysterious Brake Master cylinder. Our producer is Normal Maliko. I'm Stephen Overlea. See you back here next week.