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(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden’s administration plans to streamline permitting for geothermal energy development as part of a broader executive order geared toward improving AI data center infrastructure, according to people aware of the matter.
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According to residents, officials plan to publish the rules inside the next week, but the date is subject to change. These measures include establishing a competitive process for firms to construct data centers on federal lands, in addition to steps to speed up permitting for geothermal and nuclear energy development, according to the people, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.
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As with other regulations published towards the end of Biden’s term, it is feasible that President-elect Donald Trump will change the recent rules with the stroke of a pen once he takes office.
For example, the Trump administration is predicted to rescind Biden’s earlier executive order on artificial intelligence safety and security.
But Trump, like Biden, has made the development of data centers a national security priority and pledged to unleash all forms of energy, including renewables, to meet the enormous demand of artificial intelligence.
A White House spokesman declined to comment on the matter Tuesday evening.
At Tuesday’s news conference, Trump promised to expedite an environmental review of a $20 billion data center investment by one of his key allies in the Middle East, Damac Group CEO Hussain Sajwani. “A lot of people don’t realize that artificial intelligence is going to be a big thing, but you’re going to need at least twice as much electricity as we do now,” Trump said.
Easing permitting requirements has been a key goal of business leaders akin to OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Nvidia Corp.’s CEO. Jensen Huang, who’ve been pressing the White House for months to develop a comprehensive strategy for a national artificial intelligence infrastructure. People aware of the matter say that under Biden’s draft executive order, the Interior Department will create geothermal priority zones to meet a goal level of total permitted geothermal capability.
The Departments of Defense and Energy will also discover locations currently owned by federal agencies where large-scale data centers may very well be situated, officials said.
Facilities on government land could be subject to each physical security and cybersecurity requirements, in addition to restrictions on foreign financing. Companies would have to devote a small percentage of their data center computing power to national AI research and would even be liable for the costs of constructing and developing the infrastructure.
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