Artificial intelligence is poised to be the cornerstone of the next economic era. Its impact will be greater than the industrial and digital revolutions combined. The AI impact will drive productivity, expand individual opportunity, and cement America’s national security dominance. For Texas and the nation, the mandate is clear: lean decisively into the future rather than retreat behind shortsighted regulatory barriers.Data center moratoriums are a dangerous and gross strategic error for Texas and the United States. Texas built its modern economic phenomenon by aggressively recruiting capital out of high-tax, over-regulated states. Halting new facility permits and freezing grid interconnection throws away that hard-won momentum just as the state stands ready to eclipse Virginia as the world’s top digital infrastructure hub. Turning away billions of dollars in private capital does not protect local communities. It simply sends high-paying jobs and crucial investments to rival states and international competitors — or worse, our adversaries.The expanding data center moratorium fallout reaches well beyond state economic implications. It directly affects our national security. Texas serves as the industrial backbone for national defense, housing premier facilities for Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, and SpaceX. These aerospace and defense leaders rely directly on advanced local computing power to train autonomous systems, secure sovereign networks, and model battlefield logistics. Data centers are the modern-day steel mill of America’s national defense. If American states intentionally choke off the physical footprint these mission-critical systems require, Beijing will gladly fill the global vacuum.