Sen. Tim Scott to Quiz Fed Nominee Warsh on AI and Data Centers

Kevin Warsh is set to appear before the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday in what will mark his first testimony as Federal Reserve chairman — and the hearing's agenda is already taking shape around some of the economy's most forward-looking concerns. Sen. Tim Scott, the Republican from South Carolina who chairs the committee, has signaled he intends to probe Warsh on the intersection of monetary policy and the technology sector, specifically around data centers and artificial intelligence.

The choice of topics is telling. Data centers have become a critical piece of infrastructure underpinning the AI boom, drawing hundreds of billions in capital investment and raising questions about energy demand, credit allocation, and longer-term productivity growth. For a Fed chair, those questions touch directly on how the central bank should think about supply-side capacity and inflation dynamics in an economy increasingly shaped by compute-intensive industries.

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Warsh, a former Fed governor and longtime Wall Street figure, has been closely watched for signals about how he might approach both interest rate policy and the Fed's broader institutional role. His testimony before the Banking Committee offers the first formal, public window into his thinking as a nominee, and Scott's stated focus on AI and data centers suggests Congress wants the next Fed chair to engage seriously with technological transformation as an economic force — not merely a sector story.

The hearing arrives at a moment when the Federal Reserve's independence and policy direction are subjects of intense political scrutiny. How Warsh navigates questions on emerging technology investments while also addressing more traditional monetary policy concerns will be closely parsed by markets, lawmakers, and economists alike.

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