Biden executive order aims to speed construction of data centers, clean energy assets

In one of his final acts as president, Joe Biden issued an executive order to accelerate development of AI data centers and clean energy sources to power them.

Biden’s directive gives the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy the authority to lease federal sites where the private sector can build AI infrastructure “at speed and scale.” Biden said in a statement: “Building AI infrastructure in the United States is a national security imperative.

“AI is poised to have large effects across our economy, including in health care, transportation, education, and beyond, and it is too important to be offshored. In addition, the significant and growing electricity needs of large-scale AI operations present a new opportunity for advancing American leadership in the clean energy technologies that will power the economy.”

DOD and DOE will select sites for AI data centers and clean power facilities based on those sites’ accessibility to high-capacity transmission infrastructure and “minimized adverse effects on communities, the natural environment, and commercial resources.” DOD and DOE will hold competitive solicitations for proposals to lease these sites for building, owning, and operating large-scale AI infrastructure at suitable locations.

“DOE will take further steps to promote distributed energy resources, advance siting of clean generation resources at existing points of interconnection and support the safe and responsible deployment of nuclear energy,” the statement said.