— U.S. President Joe Biden issued an executive order Tuesday directing the development of artificial intelligence data centers on six federal land sites, with a special focus on powering them with clean energy and upholding high labor standards.
Biden said in a statement that the United States is the world leader in AI, but cannot take that lead for granted.
“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.
The order calls for the Department of Defense and Department of Energy to each identify three suitable sites where private companies will lease the land, pay for the construction and operation of the data centers and ensure the supply of enough clean energy to fully power the sites.
The developers will also have to buy “an appropriate share” of semiconductors produced in the United States to help ensure there is a “robust domestic semiconductor supply chain,” the White House said.
In addition to identifying the sites, the federal government will also commit under the order to expedite the permitting process for the data center construction.
Senior administration officials, in a phone call with journalists previewing the order, highlighted the national security need for the United States to have its own powerful AI infrastructure, both to protect it for its own use but also to prevent adversaries such as China from possessing those capabilities.
“From the national security standpoint, it’s really critical to find a pathway for building the data centers and power infrastructure to support frontier AI operations here in the United States to ensure that the most powerful AI models continue to be trained and stored securely here in the United States,” an official said.
A senior administration official cited the priority of making sure the AI industry had an anchor in the United States to avoid repeating the history of other technologies that moved offshore to areas with lower labor and environmental standards as well.
AI chip restrictions
Tuesday’s order comes a day after the Biden administration announced new restrictions on the export of the most advanced artificial intelligence chips and proprietary parameters used to govern the interactions of users with AI systems.
The rule, which will undergo a 120-day period for public comments, comes in response to what administration officials described as a need to protect national security while also clarifying the rules under which companies in trusted partner countries could access the emerging technology in order to promote innovation.
“Over the coming years, AI will become really ubiquitous in every business application in every industry around the world, with enormous potential for enhanced productivity and societal, health care and economic benefits,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told reporters. “That being said, as AI becomes more powerful, the risks to our national security become even more intense.”
A senior administration official said the new rule will not include any restrictions on chip sales to Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the United Kingdom or the United States.
The rules build on 2023 curbs limiting the export of certain AI chips to China, a strategic competitor in the production of advanced semiconductors. Beijing attacked the new U.S. AI edict as a “flagrant violation” of international trade rules.
China’s Ministry of Commerce said the Biden administration announcement “is another example of the generalization of the concept of national security and the abuse of export control, and a flagrant violation of international multilateral economic and trade rules.”
Beijing said it would “take necessary measures to firmly safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.”
Countries that are under U.S. arms embargoes are already subject to export restrictions on advanced AI chips, but a senior administration official said they will now be under restrictions for the transfer of the most powerful closed weight AI models.
The weights in an AI model determine how it processes the inputs from a user and determines what to provide the user as a response, according to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. In a closed weight system, those parameters are secret, unlike with an open weight system in which users could see the settings the model is using to make its decisions.
Most countries — those not included in the closed partner or arms embargo lists — will not face licensing requirements for obtaining the equivalent of 1,700 of the most advanced AI chips currently available, nor for any less advanced chips.
Companies in the United States and allied countries will not face restrictions in using the most powerful closed weight AI systems, provided they are stored under adequate security, a senior administration official said.
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