The outgoing US president, Joe Biden, signed an executive order that promotes the growth of artificial intelligence infrastructure.
US president Joe Biden on Tuesday signed an executive order to make sure artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, such as data centres and clean power facilities, can be built quickly.
The executive order directs certain federal agencies to make some of their sites available for AI data centres and clean power facilities, to connect the infrastructure to the electric grid, and to help speed up the permitting process.
The agencies will run “competitive solicitations” from private companies to build AI data centres on those federal sites, according to a White House statement.
Developers building on those sites will be required, among other things, to pay for the construction of those facilities and to bring sufficient clean power generation to match the full capacity needs of their data centres.
This would mean the electricity cost coming from data centres would not raise electricity prices for consumers, the administration said.
Restricting export of US AI chips
In a statement about the executive order, Biden said he signed it into force so that America will not “be out-built when it comes to the technology that will define the future, nor should we sacrifice critical environmental standards and our shared efforts to protect clean air and clean water”.
The executive order, according to Biden, also accelerates the clean energy transition in a way that is “responsible and respectful to local communities” and does not add costs to the average American.
The US government will also complete a study into how AI data centres are affecting electricity prices, the statement continued.
The executive order comes on the heels of the Biden administration’s proposed new restrictions on exports of AI chips, an attempt to balance national security concerns about the technology with the economic interests of producers and other countries.
That proposal raised concerns of chip industry executives as well as officials from the European Union over export restrictions that would affect 120 countries.
