The White House has launched an AI-focused datacenter task force to accelerate the advancement of US leadership in AI and coordinate policy across government.
The task force will be led by the National Economic Council, the National Security Council, and the White House Deputy Chief of Staff’s office. The introduction of this was announced through a White House roundtable recap on Thursday, September 12.
The roundtable was said to include technology leaders from Nvidia, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, all of whom met with government officials to discuss AI energy usage, job creation, strategic locations, and datacenter capacity.
The dedicated team “will provide streamlined coordination on policies to advance datacenter development operations in line with economic, national security, and environmental goals.”
The hope of the Biden-Harris Administration is that this approach will “ensure the United States leads the way in responsible AI innovation and development.”
Going forward, the administration will streamline datacenter permitting processes and the Department of Energy will also be involved in leveraging programs that support AI data center development.
AI datacenter task force to be a collaborative approach
The department has curated several resources including loans, grants, tax credits, and technical assistance to “help datacenter owners and operators secure clean, reliable energy solutions.”
A series of convenings with developers, clean energy solutions providers, grid operators, and other stakeholders are in the works too.
This collaborative approach marks a big shift in AI strategy within the US. As he left the meeting, the CEO of Nvidia Jensen Huang spoke with CNBC and said: “We’re at the beginning of a new industrial revolution.
“This industry is going to be producing intelligence, and what it takes is energy…So we’ve got to make sure that everybody understands the needs coming, the opportunities of it, the challenges of it, and doing it in the most efficient and scalable way we can.
“There’s probably going to have to be public-private collaboration in this area, because the rate of growth is really quite high.”
Featured Image: Via Ideogram