By SARAH PARVINI, AP Technology Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) – President Joe Biden On Tuesday, he signed an ambitious executive order artificial intelligence This is meant to be sure that the infrastructure needed for advanced AI operations, equivalent to large data centers and latest clean energy facilities, will be built quickly and at scale within the United States.
The executive order directs federal agencies to speed up the event of large-scale AI infrastructure at government sites while imposing requirements and safeguards on developers constructing at those sites. It also directs certain agencies to make federal sites available AI data centers and latest clean energy facilities. These authorities will help facilitate the connection of infrastructure to the electricity grid and speed up the approval process.
While the technology industry has long relied on data centers to power online services, from email and social media to financial transactions, latest AI technology Popular chatbots and other generative AI tools require much more powerful computation to construct and operate.
A report released last month by the Department of Energy estimated that power demand for data centers within the U.S. has tripled over the past decade and is predicted to double or triple again by 2028, when it could eat as much as 12% of the country's electricity.
In an announcement, Biden said AI “will have profound impacts on national security and enormous potential to improve the lives of Americans if used responsibly, from helping cure diseases to keeping communities safe.” by mitigating the consequences of climate change.”
“But we cannot take our leadership for granted,” the Democratic president said. “We will not allow America to become obsolete when it comes to the technology that will define the future, nor should we sacrifice important environmental standards and our collective efforts to protect clean air and water.”
Under the brand new rules, the departments of Defense and Energy will each discover no less than three sites where the private sector can construct AI data centers. Authorities will conduct “competitive bidding” from private firms to construct AI data centers on these federal sites, senior administration officials said.
Developers who construct on these properties must, amongst other things, pay for the development of those facilities and convey sufficient money with them clean electricity generation to cover the total capability needs of their data centers. Although the U.S. government leases land to an organization, that company would own the materials manufactured there, officials said.
With lower than every week before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, the massive query is whether or not the brand new administration will keep the brand new order in place or repeal it. A significant focus of the order is reducing bottlenecks in connecting energy-hungry data centers to latest sources of power, including renewable energy sources equivalent to wind and solar.
“It has to be a priority because otherwise there will be power outages and citizens or businesses will be affected,” said computer scientist Sasha Luccioni, climate director at AI company Hugging Face. “Making it easier to connect infrastructure to the grid is a no-brainer that would be useful to the next government, whatever its sustainability or climate priorities.”
Biden said the hassle is aimed toward accelerating the transition to wash energy in a way that’s “responsible and respectful of local communities” and doesn’t impose additional costs on the typical American. Developers chosen to construct on government sites must cover all costs of constructing and operating the AI infrastructure in order that the event doesn’t increase electricity prices for consumers, the administration said.
Government agencies can even conduct a study on the impact of all AI data centers on electricity prices, and the Energy Department will provide technical assistance to state utility commissions in designing electricity tariffs that may support connecting latest large customers to wash energy.
Under the order, the Interior Department will discover properties it manages which might be suitable for clean energy development and may support data centers on government sites, administration officials said.
“The amounts of computing power and electricity needed to train and operate frontier models are increasing rapidly and will continue to increase,” said Tarun Chhabra, deputy assistant to the president and coordinator for technology and national security. “We expect that by around 2028, leading AI developers will seek to operate data centers with capacity of up to five gigawatts for training AI models.”
Large-scale deployment of AI systems also requires a broader network of knowledge centers in several parts of the country, he said.
“From a national security perspective, it's really important to find a way to build the data centers and energy infrastructure to support AI border operations here in the United States,” he said, adding that constructing data centers within the U.S. “will prevent adversaries from accessing these powerful systems to the detriment of our military and national security.”
This kind of investment can even prevent the U.S. from becoming more depending on other countries for access to AI tools, Chhabra said.
The executive order follows the Biden administration's order latest restrictions proposed on the export of Artificial intelligence chipsan try and balance national security concerns in regards to the technology with the economic interests of producers and other countries. That proposal sparked concerns amongst chip industry executives in addition to European Union officials about export restrictions that may affect 120 countries.
Missing from the regulation is the query of how the water consumption of AI data centers must be managed. “In states with multiple data centers, there is growing concern about how to balance the economic development they bring with their impact on water resources as they use large amounts of water for cooling,” said J. Alan Roberson , executive director of the Association of State Drinking Water Managers.
“Across the country, everyone is trying to get a better idea of the impact data centers have on water use now and in the future,” he said.
The executive order could have directed federal agencies to gather details about how much water data centers use to assist state and native officials make zoning decisions about whether to permit them, but that was not the case, he added.
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