Biden will sign an executive order to boost the construction of artificial intelligence infrastructure

President Biden will sign an executive order on Tuesday aimed at reducing barriers to building new data centers and the accompanying energy infrastructure needed to support the development of artificial intelligence (AI).

The executive order directs the Departments of Energy and Defense to select federal sites that can be leased to companies to build “gigawatt-sized” data centers, while employing the Department of the Interior to identify land available to build clean energy infrastructure to support new data centers.

The administration also aims to prioritize “full and expedited” licensing of these sites and help facilitate the development of transmission lines and interconnections to the grid.

“Right now, the market for AI infrastructure is severely constrained,” Navtej Dhillon, deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of the White House Economic Council, told reporters in a phone call on Monday.

“Not only are these investments capital intensive, but power constraints and operational challenges result in long lead times to bring data centers to market,” he added.

In order to lease these sites, companies will be required to pay for the costs of building, operating and maintaining data centers and providing clean energy commensurate with their energy needs. They must also cooperate with the government to assess the national security risks of the AI ​​models they develop and buy an “adequate” share of American-made semiconductors.

“The United States is leading the world on the frontiers of artificial intelligence,” Biden said in a statement.

“However, we cannot take our progress for granted,” he added. “We will not allow America to outpace the world when it comes to the technology that will define the future, nor should we sacrifice important environmental standards and our shared efforts to protect clean air and clean water.”

The executive order comes on the heels of a new framework released by the Biden administration on Monday that seeks to place controls on the “proliferation” of American-made artificial intelligence, especially advanced AI chips.

The “proliferation” rule, which was immediately criticized by the semiconductor and chip industry, imposes new restrictions on chip sales to most countries around the world, except for a handful of US allies.

“The president’s executive order on AI infrastructure is really the other side of this effort,” Tarun Chhabra, deputy assistant to the president and coordinator for technology and national security, said in a phone call Monday.

“As we take steps to ensure the responsible deployment of AI technology abroad, it is really important that we ensure that the AI ​​industry can build the infrastructure to train and use robust AI models here in the United States,” he added.