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Pete Buttigieg: “The data centers are $10 billion projects.”

Featuring: Pete Buttigieg, Democratic | Former Secretary of Transportation, Former Mayor of South Bend | National

Deans Forum - A Conversation with Pete Buttigieg: "Leadership, Innovation and the Next Generation"

Published January 28, 2026 | Video Starts at 17:18

That was how much it meant and really how lean and hungry we had been for economic development since this community lost Studebaker, its largest employer in 1980. And now, I mean, the GM facility alone, that's three or $4 billion. The data centers are $10 billion projects. The last time I was here officially as secretary, I met with electrical worker apprentices in classes with more than 200 people at a time. (17:18–17:22)

CLAIM

Asserts that data centers in South Bend are $10 billion projects.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

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Pete Buttigieg

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“The interconnection between the life of the university and the city has become extraordinary.”
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“The world [children are] coming into will obviously be so radically transformed.”
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“We seem to have less access to the truth now than we did 20 years ago.”
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“The most important questions about how AI will unfold...are fundamentally policy questions.”
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“We have decisions to make, whether it's public policy about the economy and who gets to benefit from the enormous wealth that is being…”
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“Educational institutions will of course have to develop policies that will support the building of tools that we need to do on our own.”
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“That's no longer available to us, or it's in the process of, we're in the process of losing it.”
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“Few places are more vulnerable to it [AI], but I think also a few places have more value that they might be able to unlock from it than…”
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“The GM facility alone, that's three or $4 billion.”
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“I met with electrical worker apprentices in classes with more than 200 people at a time.”
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“It used to be maybe a dozen union electrical workers in an apprentice class, if you were lucky.”
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“That was ARPA dollars.”
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“When I took office, our per capita income, I think, was 17,000 or $18,000 per person.”
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“Unemployment was double digits.”
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“Newsweek said we were one of America's 10 dying cities.”
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