On Friday, December 15, 2023, a view of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center’s new supercomputer, the MareNostrum5, in Spain. (Photo by Emiliano Morenatti/AP)AP
LOS ANGELES — On Tuesday, President Joe Biden signed an ambitious executive order on artificial intelligence that aims to guarantee that the infrastructure required for advanced AI operations, including new clean power facilities and large-scale data centers, can be constructed swiftly and efficiently in the United States.
While placing restrictions and protections on companies constructing on government property, the executive order instructs federal agencies to expedite the development of extensive AI infrastructure. Additionally, it instructs several agencies to provide government sites for new clean power facilities and AI data centers. These organizations will assist in expediting the regulatory process and facilitating the infrastructure’s connection to the electrical grid.
According to Biden’s statement, if AI is used properly, it has the ability to significantly improve Americans’ lives and have significant consequences for national security, from preventing the effects of climate change on communities to curing illness.
However, the Democratic president stated that we cannot take our lead for granted. When it comes to the technologies that will shape the future, we will not allow America to fall behind, nor will we compromise important environmental norms or our joint efforts to safeguard clean water and air.
The Defense and Energy departments will each designate a minimum of three locations for the construction of AI data centers by the private sector under the new regulations. According to top administration officials, the agencies will issue competitive solicitations to private corporations for the construction of AI data centers on those federal premises.
Among other measures, developers constructing on certain sites will have to cover the cost of creating those facilities and provide enough renewable power generation to meet their data centers’ full capacity requirements. According to officials, a corporation would own the resources it produces on land that the U.S. government will lease to it.
According to Biden, the initiatives are intended to hasten the shift to renewable energy in a manner that is considerate to local communities, responsible, and does not increase costs for the typical American. According to the administration, developers who are chosen to construct on government property would have to cover all expenses related to creating and running AI infrastructure in order to prevent development from driving up consumer electricity rates.
Additionally, the orders mandate that public labor agreements be used when building AI data centers on federal property. According to government officials, some of the websites are only available to small and medium-sized AI businesses.
The Energy Department will offer state public utility commissions technical assistance on electricity tariff designs that can facilitate connecting new large customers with clean energy, and government agencies will finish a study on how all AI data centers affect electricity prices.
According to administration officials, the order calls on the Interior Department to determine which lands under its management are appropriate for the development of sustainable energy and can accommodate data centers on federal properties.
According to Tarun Chhabra, the president’s deputy assistant and coordinator for technology and national security, the amounts of electricity and processing power required to train and run frontier models are rising quickly and are expected to rise even further. We predict that top AI developers will aim to run data centers with up to five gigawatts of capacity for AI model training by 2028.
According to him, a larger nationwide network of data centers is also necessary for the large-scale deployment of AI systems.
Finding a way to build the data centers and power infrastructure to support frontier AI operations here in the United States is really important from a national security perspective, he said, adding that constructing data centers in the country will keep adversaries from gaining access to these potent systems at the expense of our military and national security.
According to Chhabra, that kind of investment will help keep the United States from becoming more reliant on other nations for access to AI capabilities.
In an effort to strike a balance between national security concerns over the technology and the commercial interests of producers and other nations, the Biden administration has recommended new limitations on the export of artificial intelligence chips, which the executive order follows. Executives in the chip sector and EU officials expressed worry over the proposal’s export limits, which would apply to 120 countries.