Although the current US President Biden will step down on January 20th next year, the Biden administration seems to be still brewing big moves. It has been revealed that the Biden administration is weighing whether to use federal land to help American tech giants build data centers to drive the development of artificial intelligence (AI).
An official familiar with the plan said that the focus of the plan is on how to identify some federal plots that can accommodate data centers to accelerate construction and place them near clean energy.
However, it is currently unclear whether US President elect Trump will maintain this initiative after taking office next year.
The Biden administration will assist in building AI data centers
On Thursday Eastern Time, Lael Brainard, the director of Biden's National Economic Council, mentioned this effort in a speech at the Brookings Institution. She released the Biden administration's supply chain assessment report in her speech and stated that the government is seeking to implement a systematic approach to address the needs of key industries such as artificial intelligence.
In a pre speech interview, Brainard stated that the government wants to ensure that the United States maintains a leading position in the race to develop generative AI.
We are working hard to take action to address restrictions on land, electricity, and licensing, in order to retain critical artificial intelligence power infrastructure in the United States
This way, we can not only solve our economic and national security issues, but also help ensure that these infrastructures are powered by clean energy and that there is no impact on electricity costs for American consumers
Brainard stated that the US government is committed to maintaining the country's leading position in the most advanced field of artificial intelligence due to its impact on national security and the economy.
We are starting to hear a lot of news about how fast the computing power of the most advanced training models is growing, and we are also hearing people in this field say that they hope to transfer to other countries because they can obtain large, cheap energy in other places, but in these other places, most of these energy sources are not clean energy
The White House has invited leaders of leading American artificial intelligence companies to meet with government officials multiple times. In September of this year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman attended a White House symposium. Ultraman proposed to the White House the necessity of establishing large data centers - however, the electricity consumption of data centers is equivalent to that of a city.
The government will support the private sector
In the interview, Brainard compared this issue to the computer chip industry and stated that the United States has fallen behind in this area and has to catch up. This includes the issuance of subsidies for one of Biden's flagship legislation, the Chip and Science Act.
In order to maintain the dominant position of the United States, the private sector needs to be able to establish large-scale artificial intelligence infrastructure, including necessary computing power, in the United States
Brainard downplayed the potential role of the US government in building power facilities for data centers, but stated that the White House's focus is on ensuring the availability of power transmission and clean energy.
The US government will be more like a partner of the private sector, supporting the private sector with practice and funding in building necessary data centers, while the federal government has the authority to promote licensing and power transmission.
We have clearly heard from the leaders in the industry about their demand for computing power, scale, timeline, and some challenges they need to help address