Biden opens federal land for AI data centers, sets rules for developers
Summary
President Joe Biden issued an executive order Thursday aimed at speeding domestic construction of artificial intelligence infrastructure and shoring up the national security risk involved in the technology. "AI is poised to have large effects across our economy, including in health care, transportation, education, and beyond, and it is too important to be offshored," the White House said in a release. The order also issued guidelines for AI developers using the sites to not only build, operate and maintain the leased centers at full cost, but also to deliver clean energy resources to match their capacity needs to prevent increases in electricity costs. AI models, especially large language models like OpenAIs ChatGPT, rely on data centers to train on vast amounts of data and generate more sophisticated, human-like answers to user prompts. To cool the power-intensive structures, AI developers have had to increase water consumption, which critics have pointed out as harmful to the environment and unsustainable in the long run.