President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Tuesday to accelerate the development of large-scale artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States. The order directs federal agencies to speed up AI infrastructure construction at government sites while setting requirements and safeguards for developers building on those locations. Under the new rules, the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy will each identify at least three sites where private companies can build AI data centers.
The agencies will run competitive solicitations from private firms to construct AI data centers on those federal sites. Developers will be required to pay for the facilities’ construction and bring sufficient power to match the full capacity needs of their data centers. The executive order also directs certain agencies to make federal sites available for new clean power facilities.
These agencies will help facilitate the infrastructure’s connection to the electric grid and expedite the permitting process. Biden said in a statement that AI will have “profound implications for national security and enormous potential to improve Americans’ lives if harnessed responsibly, from helping cure disease to keeping communities safe by mitigating the effects of climate change.
The president emphasized that the U.S. cannot take its lead in AI for granted.
Advancing AI data center infrastructure
“We will not let America be out-built when it comes to the technology that will define the future, nor should we sacrifice critical environmental standards and our shared efforts to protect clean air and clean water,” he said. The order focuses on reducing bottlenecks in connecting to new electricity sources, including renewable sources like wind and solar. Computer scientist Sasha Luccioni, climate lead at AI company Hugging Face, said, “Making it easier to facilitate interconnection of infrastructure to the electric grid is kind of a no brainer that would be useful for the next administration, no matter what their priorities are in terms of sustainability or climate.
Biden stated that the efforts aim to accelerate the clean energy transition in a way that is “responsible and respectful to local communities” and does not add costs to the average American.
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Developers selected to build on government sites will be required to pay all costs of building and operating AI infrastructure to avoid raising electricity prices for consumers. The orders also mandate construction of AI data centers on federal sites to be done with public labor agreements. Some of the sites are reserved for small and medium-sized AI companies, according to government officials.
As part of the order, the Interior Department will identify lands it manages that are suitable for clean energy development and can support data centers on government sites. Tarun Chhabra, deputy assistant to the president and coordinator for technology and national security, said, “From a national security standpoint, it’s really critical to find a pathway for building the data centers and power infrastructure to support frontier AI operations here in the United States.” He added that building data centers in the U.S. will prevent “adversaries from accessing these powerful systems to the detriment of our military and our national security.
The executive order follows the Biden administration’s new rules on exporting AI chips, which stirred debate among industry executives and officials from the European Union and China while facing criticism from some Republicans and Trump allies. In contrast, tech industry groups welcomed Biden’s data center order on Tuesday, although some liberal groups said it lacked sufficient environmental protections.
Cameron is a highly regarded contributor in the rapidly evolving fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. His articles delve into the theoretical underpinnings of AI, the practical applications of machine learning across industries, ethical considerations of autonomous systems, and the societal impacts of these disruptive technologies.
