Biden opens federal land to power-hungry AI datacenters
Watt's the problem? Not enough energy to win the arms race?
US President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed an executive order that aims to ensure American AI leadership doesn't lag because of shoddy energy infrastructure.
The order directs the Department of Defense and Department of Energy to identify and lease federal land to the private sector for the purposes of developing gigawatt-scale datacenters along with the "clean power infrastructure" necessary to support the "full electricity needs" of these facilities.
"The significant and growing electricity needs of large-scale AI operations present a new opportunity for advancing American leadership in clean energy technologies that will power the economy," the US President said in a White House statement.
The extreme power required for massive AI compute workloads has driven many cloud and hyperscale operators to embrace emerging energy tech, fund the construction of new gas plants, and even colocate some facilities alongside existing nuclear reactors.
Meta, for instance, recently issued a request for proposal for up to four gigawatts of nuclear power generation to support its long-term AI ambitions.
Maintaining AI leadership has become a focal point for the Biden administration, which has repeatedly turned to executive powers and export controls to advance US companies while stifling development by rival nations, most notably China and Russia.
"By activating the full force of the federal government to speed up and scale AI operations here in the United States, we are securing our global leadership on AI, which will have a profound impact on our economy, society, and national security for generations to come," Vice President Kamala Harris said in a White House statement.
The order cites a variety of existing and emerging technologies that could support the AI's massive appetite for energy including nuclear, geothermal, solar, wind, and hydroelectric power.
By matching energy generation to datacenter demand, the White House hopes to avoid driving up consumer electricity pricing.
However, given the pace at which the Biden administration aims to advance the development of these facilities, some technologies, most notably small modular reactors (SMRs), may not be practical. According to the order, site selection and partner evaluation are slated for completion in 2025, with facilities projected to be operational by late 2027.
Several cloud providers have announced plans to adopt SMRs long term. However, the majority are slated for deployment in the early 2030s, likely putting them outside the scope of the order.
While the order directs government agencies to lease federal land to private partners, streamline permits, and facilitate grid planning, participants will still be responsible for the cost of building and furnishing the datacenters along with procuring clean energy for the sites.
Additionally, participants will be required to purchase an appropriate share of domestically manufactured semiconductors.
This last point is potentially problematic for datacenter operators as only a fraction of the processors used in AI systems today are actually built in the US. While Intel's Xeon processor family is still manufactured domestically, the vast majority of other CPUs, GPUs, and AI accelerators have long since been outsourced to fabs in Taiwan.
This could, however, change as TSMC ramps production at its new Arizona fab sites, potentially enabling chips from AMD, Nvidia, and others to be built in the US.
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The executive order comes amid growing pressure from AI advocates and model builders, such as OpenAI founder Sam Altman who has reportedly called on the US to advance a network of multi-gigawatt AI datacenters.
However, all of the deadlines set forth under the order will fall to the Trump administration to follow through on. With the President-elect set to take office on Monday, there's no guarantee the order won't be scrapped or substantially altered — for example dropping clean energy mandates.
The announcement of federal site selection will be made at the end of March 2025.
Tuesday's order comes a day after the Biden administration announced tighter rules on AI exports, restricting the sale of GPUs to most of the world. However, just like today's executive order, it's unclear whether these rules will survive next week's presidential transition. ®