David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Tuesday providing federal support to address the massive energy needs of fast-growing advanced artificial intelligence data centers, the White House said.
The order calls for leasing federal sites owned by the Departments of Defense and Energy to house gigawatt-sized AI data centers and new clean energy facilities – to meet massive electricity needs on short notice.
Biden said the order “will accelerate the speed at which we build the next generation of AI infrastructure here in America, in a way that improves economic competitiveness, national security, AI security and clean energy.”
The order also requires companies using federal land for AI data centers to buy an “appropriate share” of American-made semiconductors. The number of purchases required would be determined on a case-by-case basis for each project, and comes as the Biden administration spends more than $30 billion to subsidize U.S. chip manufacturing.
“It is vitally important that we ensure that the AI industry can build the infrastructure to train and use powerful AI models here in the United States,” White House technology adviser Tarun Chhabra told reporters.
He noted that the amounts of computing power and electricity needed to train and run frontier models — a term for the most advanced artificial intelligence models available — “are rapidly increasing and will continue to increase.”
He said that around 2028, leading AI developers will aim to operate data centers with as much as five gigawatts of capacity for training AI models.
The Commerce Department said Monday it will further restrict exports of AI chips and technology to keep advanced computing power in the United States and among its allies while finding more ways to block access to China.
“From a national security standpoint, it’s really critical to find a way to build data centers and power infrastructure to support border AI operations here in the United States, to ensure that the most powerful AI models continue to be trained and safely stored here in the United States.” , Chhabra said.
Biden also wants the agencies to make it easier to interconnect with the electric grid, expeditiously address permitting obligations and advance transmission development around federal sites.
Chhabra noted that AI systems developed today already “show really remarkable capabilities for military applications or potential use, including really significant risks when it comes to engineering biological or chemical, radiological or nuclear weapons, for cyber attacks.”
He added that securing domestic data centers “will also prevent our adversaries from accessing these powerful systems to the detriment of our military and our national security.”
