The White House announced on Thursday its plans to launch a new Task Force on AI Datacenter Infrastructure to coordinate policy across government, along with other actions to ensure the United States continues to lead in AI tech.
The announcements came following a roundtable the White House hosted on Sept. 12 with industry leaders from hyperscalers, AI companies, datacenter operators, and utility companies.
“Led by the National Economic Council, National Security Council, and the White House Deputy Chief of Staff’s office, the interagency Task Force will provide streamlined coordination on policies to advance datacenter development operations in line with economic, national security, and environmental goals,” the White House said in a press release.
“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 datacenter development to reflect the importance of these projects to American national security and economic interests,” it added.
The White House said that the new task force will also build on recent work to identify areas where legislative action is needed to support AI datacenter development
In addition to the task force announcement, the White House also said it will be scaling up technical assistance to help Federal, state, and local authorities with datacenter permitting.
The Department of Energy will be creating an AI datacenter engagement team to help support AI data center development. The agency also said it will continue to share resources on repurposing closed coal sites with datacenter developers.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also pledged to identify nationwide permits that can help expedite the construction of eligible AI datacenters.
As for the industry leaders, the White House said they “committed to enhance cooperation with policy makers and explore further solutions, through ongoing dialogue and collaboration.” Hyperscalers also reaffirmed their commitments to achieving “net zero carbon emissions and to procuring clean energy to power their operations.”
The announcements came the same day that Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., warned that the United States is headed for a “calamity” if it’s not able to “energize these data centers to compete” with China.
“America will need more energy to meet the growing demand from data centers and a manufacturing resurgence that has resulted from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act,” Sen. Manchin said on Thursday during a Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources hearing.
