Biden opens federal land for AI development

Gopal Ratnam, CQ-Roll Call on Jan 14, 2025

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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed an executive order that opens federal land for private development of infrastructure and the energy supply needed to create advanced artificial intelligence models in the United States.

The order, which mentions “clean power” a dozen times, dovetails with other Biden administration actions in the climate sector that President-elect Donald Trump has said he plans to revoke.

It directs the Pentagon and the Energy Department to lease and host gigawatt-scale AI data centers operated by private companies and ensure that such sites have access to high-capacity power transmission lines. Private companies that are chosen to operate such data centers would be required to develop and bring online clean energy sources.

It also directs the Energy Department to help private companies operating the data centers in “constructing, financing, facilitating, and planning the upgrade and development of transmission lines around those sites.”

“We will not let America 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,” Biden said in a statement.

He said leasing federal sites will allow the private sector to build “frontier AI infrastructure at speed and scale,” including extensive data centers and power sources. “These efforts are designed to accelerate the clean energy transition in a way that is responsible and respectful to local communities, and in a way that does not impose any new costs on American families,” he said.

Large data centers that consume huge quantities of power are needed for the so-called large-language models that are at the frontier of AI. The global consulting firm McKinsey & Co. in November estimated that U.S. power needs are expected to reach 606 terawatt-hours by 2030, up from 147 TWh in 2023.

Biden said the issue was a matter of national security because these systems are likely to have far-reaching effects on health care, transportation, education and other sectors that are “too important to be offshored.”

The executive order comes on the heels of the Commerce Department’s proposed set of rules that cap exports to more than 100 countries of high-end computing chips used to develop AI models. Only 18 close U.S. allies would be able to buy advanced chips without such restrictions. The White House said the export restrictions were intended to ensure that only the United States and its close allies would have the ability to build advanced AI models.

It’s unclear if the Biden order will survive the incoming Trump administration. In addition to the stance on climate rules, the Republican Party’s 2024 election platform promised to revoke the Biden administration’s AI policies, calling them too restrictive.