The Biden administration has announced the creation of a Task Force on AI Data Center Infrastructure, designed to coordinate artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure policy across federal agencies.
In a press statement, the administration said the new task force will “provide streamlined coordination on policies to advance data center development operations in line with economic, national security, and environmental goals. The Task Force will work with AI infrastructure leaders to identify opportunities and work with agencies to ensure adequate resourcing, designate agency single points of contact, and properly prioritize AI data center development to reflect the importance of these projects to American national security and economic interests. Finally, the Task Force will build on recent work to identify existing authorities and areas where legislative action is needed to modify or strengthen federal authorities to support AI data center development.”
In conjunction with the task force, the Department of Energy has created an AI data center engagement team to leverage programs to support AI data center development, which will include repurposing closed coal sites with data center developers. The US Army Corps of Engineers will also identify nationwide permits to expedite the construction of eligible AI data centers.
Private sector participants in the task force include Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer of Alphabet; Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon Web Services; Javier Olivan, chief operating officer at Meta; Brad Smith, president and vice chairman at Microsoft; Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia; and Sam Altman, CEO at OpenAI. However, conspicuously absent from the task force was Elon Musk and his company xAI – Musk has been critical of multiple aspects of the Biden administration and endorsed former President Donald Trump in this year’s election.
;
