The Order directs the Departments of Defence (DoD) and Energy (DoE) to actively lease sites for new gigawatt-scale AI infrastructure projects, with facilities proposed on DoD or DoE property subject to expedited environmental analyses.
President Biden as the Order’s directives would enhance US economic competitiveness, national security, AI safety, and clean energy, adding: “We will not let America be out-built when it comes to the technology that will define the future.”
“This order sets our Nation on the path to ensure that future frontier AI can, and will, continue to be built here in the US,” President Biden said.
The Executive Order will see the DOD and DOE select federally-owned sites where private sector firms can build AI data centres and clean power facilities. The Department of Interior will work to help identify suitable sites, with permitting processes for geothermal-related projects subjected to enhanced consideration.
Proposed sites would have to have access to high-capacity transmission infrastructure and produce minimised adverse effects on local communities, environments, and local resources.
Once sites are greenlit, the DOD and DOE will hold competitive solicitations for proposals to lease and operate them.
Once a developer is chosen, they’ll be required to show they have sufficient clean energy generation resources to match the needs of any proposed data centres.
The Executive Order also instructs the DOE to work with utility firms to asses their requirements for interconnecting AI infrastructure on federal sites.
Developers and operators chosen to take on data centres on federal sites will be required by law to pay all building and operating costs while ensuring sites don’t impact electricity prices for local consumers.
President Biden said the Executive Order acts as a plan to “protect national security, preserve our economic competitiveness, revitalise our energy infrastructure, and ensure US leadership in AI”.
“The development of AI infrastructure should proceed without raising energy costs for American consumers and businesses, and it should have strong community support,” President Biden said. “The companies developing, commercialising, and deploying AI must finance the cost of building the infrastructure needed for AI operations, including the development of next-generation power infrastructure built for these operations.”
The Executive Order is the second made by President Biden related to AI. The first, issued in October 2023, focused on AI safety, ordering federal agencies to create standards to ensure AI tools they’re using are safe to use.
This latest order comes as the US data centre market is exploding, with billions being pumped in to capture the demand for AI and cloud services.
Microsoft alone plans to spend half of its $80 billion AI data centre war chest building sites in the US in 2025, while President-Elect Trump has already courted billions of dollars in capital for new infrastructure projects from Damac’s Hussain Sajwani and SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son.
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