With lower than every week left in workplace, President Joe Biden isn’t accomplished leaving his mark on the AI trade.
President Biden issued an government order on Tuesday that may permit personal sector AI firms to lease federal websites owned by the Department of Defense and Department of Energy so as to construct AI information facilities. Companies that construct information facilities on these websites will probably be required to carry on-line sufficient clear power assets to match the electrical energy wanted to energy the info facilities.
This isn’t a grant program. AI firms that construct information facilities on these federal websites might want to pay the total value to construct, function, and keep them.
In a press launch, the White House mentioned that this order is supposed to strengthen and safe the U.S.’s international management on AI and forestall home AI firms from relying on different international locations to entry AI instruments and infrastructure. It added that the right assets will probably be awarded for these departments to make sure they will examine and approve bids for federal websites rapidly and effectively.
The government order’s emphasis on renewable power right here appears notable. Data facilities at present eat 4% of all of the U.S.’s energy, in response to the Electric Power Research Institute, and that determine is anticipated to develop to 9% by the top of the last decade. Overall, information middle energy demand is anticipated to double over the subsequent 5 years, in response to a report by JLL.
This government order comes simply at some point after the Biden Administration introduced a brand new algorithm and tips relating to AI chip exports that imposed additional restrictions on various international locations, together with adversaries like China and Russia, whereas additionally imposing a 50,000 chip quota for almost all of the remainder of the world.
The caveat is that these orders come only a week earlier than Donald Trump returns to the presidency, the place he’s anticipated to reverse quite a lot of Biden administration insurance policies.
