[HN Gopher] Executive order on advancing United States leadershi...
___________________________________________________________________
Executive order on advancing United States leadership in AI
infrastructure
Author : Philpax
Score : 119 points
Date : 2025-01-14 17:40 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.whitehouse.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.whitehouse.gov)
| EmilStenstrom wrote:
| Summary of the concrete actions:
|
| 1. _Early 2025:_ Identify Federal sites for AI data centers,
| clean energy facilities, and geothermal zones. Streamline
| permitting processes and draft reporting requirements for AI
| infrastructure. Develop a plan for global collaboration on
| trusted AI infrastructure.
|
| 2. _By Mid-2025:_ Issue solicitations for AI infrastructure
| projects on Federal sites. Select winning proposals and announce
| plans for site preparation. Plan grid upgrades and set energy
| efficiency targets for AI data centers.
|
| 3. _By Late 2025:_ Finalize all permits and complete
| environmental reviews. Begin construction of AI infrastructure
| and prioritize grid enhancements.
|
| 4. _By 2027:_ Ensure AI data centers are operational, utilizing
| clean energy to meet power demands.
|
| 5. _Ongoing:_ Advance research on energy efficiency and supply
| chain resilience. Report on AI infrastructure impacts and
| collaborate internationally on clean energy and trusted AI
| development.
| digdugdirk wrote:
| That's actually a wildly short timeframe for a large political
| plan like this. Going from idea to breaking ground on a massive
| infrastructure project in a calendar year? It'll be interesting
| to see if this turns into a political/legal quagmire or not,
| since it's ostensibly aligned with both parties (donors)
| interests.
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| Agreed, it seems wildly optimistic to me. I was working at a
| military installation command last year and it would often
| take 6 months just to survey some existing buildings for
| renovation + repurposing and trying to get those plans
| approved. Stuff like "repaint these walls, mitigate mold, and
| install sub-divided chain-link fence in this warehouse" was
| busting our timelines. I'm assuming that just getting the
| paperwork right for a Federal government construction project
| is an equally-huge lift.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| The contracts will go to Google and Amazon who can lay down
| a Data center in months
| michaelt wrote:
| Depends on the implementation details.
|
| If you could identify, say, a defunct aluminium smelting
| plant?
|
| It'll probably have access to 30 megawatts of power. You'd
| have to give nvidia quite a lot of money get enough GPUs to
| consume that.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| With the incoming admin I can't imagine anything other than
| huge nat gas plants being built to power these data centers...
| culi wrote:
| UN confirmed that we zoomed passed the 1.5degC mark in 2024.
| It feels like we're in the "learn how to grow food for you
| and your community" stage
|
| https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/01/1158891
| davis wrote:
| It doesn't matter what the incoming admin thinks, it just
| matters what makes the most economic sense. If
| interconnection queues are backed up and the grid is lacking
| the electricity required, offgrid might be the way to go:
| https://www.offgridai.us/
|
| People assume gas plants are the fastest and easiest to build
| and power but you have to get the natural gas to the plant.
| Nat gas pipelines take years to build and also there are gas
| turbine supply issues. Offgrid solar + battery solves all of
| these.
| hammock wrote:
| The EO talks a lot about prioritizing clean power.
| Blackthorn wrote:
| Somehow, I don't think the incoming executive cares about
| that.
| rayiner wrote:
| That schedule is impossible. Given the amount of power data
| centers take, and the fact that the government is new to
| building them, the environmental review process and lawsuits
| will take years.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Automobile manufacturers can bring a plant from foundation to
| production in under a year, it's not that far-fetched. A
| datacenter is orders of magnitude less complex.
| switchbak wrote:
| My understanding is that it's not the data center that's
| the problem, it's the energy required to run them. This is
| especially demanding with us rubbing AI over everything and
| using insane amounts of energy in the process.
|
| Ie: making a new data center is easy. Making new power
| plants quickly - not so much. But hey, at least there's
| some renewed political will, better than nothing.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| I don't have sources to back it up, but am reasonably
| sure these factories consume even more energy than a
| datacenter, possibly in the GW range. Powering robots,
| welders, and all kinds of mechanical systems in addition
| to electronics is very power intensive.
|
| As another data point, Apple has been doing 100%
| renewables for their DCs since 2014. A wind farm can
| definitely be built in months, and energy companies will
| always follow the money. Site selection will definitely
| take energy availability into account as well.
| hammock wrote:
| The EO proposes to use federal land, so that ought to
| facilitate shortcutting some of the process.
| DannyBee wrote:
| I agree in general, but equipment mainly due to lead times
| and not permit/etc times.
|
| Remember it's federal land, so they can't be held to state
| permitting or building codes, etc, only what they choose to
| (IE if their agency adopted it explicitly)
|
| Having seen lots of datacenters constructed over the years -
| it's tractable in terms of the bureaucracy parts if they want
| it to be - because they can mostly ignore them.
|
| So for me it breaks down like:
|
| Building construction, it could be done.
|
| Power provision - hard to say without knowing the sites. some
| would be clear yes, some would be clear no. Probably more nos
| than yeses.
|
| Filling it with AI related anything at a useful scale - no,
| the chips don't exist unless you steal them from someoene
| else, or you are putting older surplus stuff in.
| rayiner wrote:
| I'm not an environmental lawyer, but you don't think these
| will be subject to NEPA? It sounds like they're trying to
| piggy-back off land that was made available for solar
| projects under an existing EIS, but it sounds that those
| decisions could be litigated.
| davedx wrote:
| The EO also has quite some provisions for fast tracking
| permits. The whole thing is worth a read
| m4rtink wrote:
| Provided all this centralized governement owned and run infra
| somehow gets built, what it would be actually doing to warrant
| the expense ?
|
| I am quite skeptical in this regard. :P
| Terr_ wrote:
| Well, it would funnel tax dollars to already-established
| companies that don't _need_ the subsidies. :p
|
| I have some sympathy for certain domestic capabilities (e.g.
| chip fabrication) but this "AI" bubble cross-infecting
| government policy is frustrating to watch.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> Well, it would funnel tax dollars to already-established
| companies that don't need the subsidies.
|
| Yeah it sounded like a gift to nVidia.
|
| My prediction was that nVidia would ride the quantum wave
| by offering systems to _simulate_ quantum computers with
| huge classical ones. They would do that by asking the
| government to fund such systems for "quantum algorithm
| research" since nobody really knows what to use QC for yet.
|
| This move primes that relationship using the current AI
| hype boom.
|
| So look for their quantum simulation-optimized chips in the
| near future.
|
| GPU, gpgpu, crypto, ray tracing, AI, quantum. nvidia is a
| master at milking dollars from tech fads.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| It's hard to know how much this effort is about the
| government's belief in AI, and how much of it is about
| supporting the technology sector while using AI as a
| convenient buzzword.
|
| I think, though, that even if LLMs turn out to be a dead-
| end and don't progress much further... there are a lot of
| benefits here.
|
| One of the US's key strategic advantages is _brain drain._
|
| We are one of the world's premier destinations for highly
| educated, highly skilled people from other countries. Their
| loss, our gain.
|
| There are of course myriad other countries where they
| _could_ go, many of them more attractive than the US in
| various ways. Every country in the world is in a sense
| competing for this talent.
| cuteboy19 wrote:
| zero sum thinking has already infected public policy.
| turns out liberals can be just as "they took our jobs" as
| the redneck conservative.
|
| the real fear should be that people wouldnt want to come.
| already chinese intl students are break even when
| considering US vs going back to china. who wants to deal
| with all the bureaucracy and hatred when they could just
| go back and work for deepseek.
| shafyy wrote:
| > * One of the US's key strategic advantages is brain
| drain.*
|
| I think the brain drain has peaked. Many people here in
| Europe don't think much of the US anymore, while 20-30
| years ago it was THE place to go.
|
| I'm sure many countries like India and China, for whom
| the US still might be somewhat attractive, are going to
| go the way of Europeans.
| ericmay wrote:
| What would the cost be of not undertaking these actions?
| JohnBooty wrote:
| In the micro, nothing. We'd have a bunch of extra cash we
| can spend on other stuff.
|
| In the macro?
|
| The overall goal is keeping the US competitive in
| technology. Both in terms of producing/controlling IP as
| well as (perhaps even more crucially) remaining a premier
| destination for technologists from all over the world. The
| cost of not achieving that goal is... incalculable, but
| large.
|
| Whether or not this is a good way to achieve that goal is
| of course up for debate.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| We have no extra cash. We are so far in debt as it is
| we'll never get out.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Building Skynet of course.
|
| There is already AI flying F-16's.
|
| AI targeting systems.
|
| AI surveillance
|
| I mean, sky's the limit.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| I suspect we are not in a race for a better LLM, but a race
| to the singularity.
|
| "I. J. Good's intelligence explosion model of 1965, an
| upgradable intelligent agent could eventually enter a
| positive feedback loop of self-improvement cycles, each
| successive; and more intelligent generation appearing more
| and more rapidly, causing a rapid increase ("explosion") in
| intelligence which would ultimately result in a powerful
| superintelligence, qualitatively far surpassing all human
| intelligence.[4]"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
| Terr_ wrote:
| > I suspect we are not in a race for a better LLM, but a
| race to the singularity.
|
| We are in the race for a better LLM*, deliberately
| _disguised_ as a race to the singularity, because that 's
| what gets investor-dollars and fame.
|
| * And anything else close enough to ride on their hype-
| coattails
| nradov wrote:
| Belief in a coming technological singularity is completely
| unscientific and based on zero hard evidence. It is
| essentially a secular religion with computers cast as
| deities to either usher in a new utopia or exterminate us
| all. Surely I am coming quickly, sayeth the Lord.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Is there any reason whatsoever that I should think that I.
| J. Good's intelligence explosion model of 1965 corresponds
| to reality?
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| When I step through the logic in my mind, seems likely.
|
| Lets make the leap of faith that we can improve our AIs
| to actually understand code that it's reading and can
| suggest improvements. Current LLMs can't do it, but
| perhaps another approach can. I don't think this is a big
| leap. Might be 10 years, might be 100.
|
| It's not unreasonable to think there is a lot of cruft
| and optimization to be had in our current tech stacks
| allowing for significant improvement. The AI can start
| looking at every source file from the lowest driver all
| the way up to the UI.
|
| It can also start looking at hardware designs and build
| chips dedicated to the functions it needs to perform.
|
| You only need to be as smart as a human to achieve this.
| You can rely on a "quantitative" approach because even
| human level AI brains don't need to sleep or eat or live.
| They just work on your problems 24/7 and can you have
| have as many as you can manufacture and power.
|
| I think having "qualitatively" superiority is a little
| easier actually because with a large enough database the
| AI has perfect recall and all of the worlds data at its
| fingertips. No human can do that.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Let's say all of that happens. Is there any reason to
| believe that will lead to "a positive feedback loop of
| self-improvement cycles, each successive; and more
| intelligent generation appearing more and more rapidly,
| causing a rapid increase ("explosion") in intelligence
| which would ultimately result in a powerful
| superintelligence, qualitatively far surpassing all human
| intelligence"?
|
| Or is it more reasonable to suppose that 1) all those
| improvements might get us a factor of 10 in efficiency,
| but they won't get us an intelligence that can get us
| _another_ factor of 10 in efficiency, 2) each doubling of
| ability will take much more than doubling of the number
| of CPU cycles and RAM, and 3) growth will asymptotically
| approach some upper limit?
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| Yeah sure, there are physical limits, and doing things
| like mining, manufacturing, and logistics are really slow
| compared to just thinking. But that's just time and
| money. I don't see why it wouldn't happen. You build a
| machine to make machines. First you have 1, then 2, then
| 4, then 8, then 16 etc.
|
| Then when the earth is used up, you look at space. Space
| travel is a lot easier because you don't need to keep a
| meat bag alive.
| glitchc wrote:
| I for one am not worried about this. We still have trouble
| building robots that can wash dishes autonomously, let
| alone build nuclear power plants autonomously. The key word
| here being _autonomously_ i.e. without human intervention,
| which is what a superintelligent machine would require to
| grow into this singularity.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| They'll be scouring the internet for signs of thoughtcrime
| and jamming the sources they find. Also, automating those
| sectors that tend to produce whistleblowers.
|
| Because if they don't do the bad thing first, some bogeyman
| might become better at it than they are. Same logic that gave
| us the Manhattan project.
| j45 wrote:
| If it's for the government.. Bureaucratic processes?
| exe34 wrote:
| corporate handouts.
| torified wrote:
| All that illegal wiretapping has to be analyzed somehow!
| chrishtr wrote:
| It's not government owned and operated. It's just on
| government land.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| Why in reading that do I only see "enact police state"
| altruios wrote:
| Are they just going to train LLM's themselves... LLM's are the
| hot topic today, but... Waiting for new architecture to drop.
| nfRfqX5n wrote:
| Can someone explain the purpose of releasing this right before
| their administration is ending? Or am I misunderstanding
| something
| JackYoustra wrote:
| It becomes a default, which, even when it's at the pleasure of
| the president, substantially increases the chances of it
| continuing
| Pidaymou wrote:
| The US bureaucracy is largely indifferent to changes in
| administration, though it undoubtedly wields significant
| influence. The key point is that major policy decisions are
| made by established bureaucrats in the military, State
| Department, and other parts of the essential institutional
| actors. As a result, any country, like China, perceived as a
| threat to US hegemony will be vigorously fought against.
| hk1337 wrote:
| Maybe but there's such a small amount of time between now and
| the new admin, it couldn't be that difficult to kill the
| bureaucracy behind it? If had been going to 3-4 years
| already, sure I can see that.
| foolfoolz wrote:
| when new presidents come in the rest of the government
| employees don't change as well. some of these at higher
| levels are career employees who will serve through many
| presidents. timing your asks to just get approved by an
| outgoing president can make your future bright
| exogenousdata wrote:
| Historically you are correct that only around 4,000
| employees of the US federal government are 'political
| hires' that the President can change/hire/fire. However
| in October 2020, Trump ordered Schedule F [0] that
| effectively increases the number of career bureaucrats
| that could be made by political appointment rather than
| by a competitive process. The Order was promptly
| rescinded by the Biden administration in Jan 2021. [1]
|
| The Trump administration said that they believed Schedule
| F would increase the number of career positions to
| roughly 50,000 existing jobs. However many think tanks
| and union members believe that Schedule F could be
| interpreted much more broadly and could include well over
| 100,000 positions.
|
| If the Trump administration revives the Schedule F order,
| it could mean very significant changes for many career
| bureaucrats.
|
| [0] - https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-10-26/p
| df/2020-2... [1] - https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-
| room/presidential-action...
| spencerflem wrote:
| This is historically true, but likely to change under project
| 2025
| quirk wrote:
| If any of this ever happens, their party can claim that they
| did it.
| bgilroy26 wrote:
| They had put a committee together in case Harris won.
|
| They lost
|
| The committee dumps their report and disbands
|
| ----------------
|
| Trump's 1776 commission for redesigning history education
| released their report days before Biden's inauguration. They
| published by linking a PDF to the White House website and days
| later it was gone. Dust in the wind.
| api_or_ipa wrote:
| It's interesting to see the federal government taking a strong
| industrial policy approach to AI through this executive order as
| well as physical computing via the CHIPS act.
|
| Couple concerns:
|
| - I loath to believe in silver bullets. The executive branch
| seems to believe that investing in AI (note: the order, despite
| the extensive definitions, leaves Artificial Intelligence
| undefined) is the solution to US global leadership, clean energy,
| national defense and better jobs. Rarely if ever is one policy a
| panacea for so many objectives.
|
| - I am skeptical of government "picking the winners". Markets do
| best when competitive forces reward innovation. By enforcing an
| industrial policy on a nascent industry, the executive may just
| as well be stifling innovation from unlikely firms.
|
| - I am always worried about inducing a _subsidy race_ whereby
| countries race to subsidize firms to gain a competitive
| advantage. Other countries do the same, leading to a glut of
| stimulus with little advantage to any country.
|
| - Finally, government bureaucracy moves slowly (some say that's
| the point). What happens if a breakthrough innovation in AI
| radically changes our needs for the type, size or other
| characteristic of these data centers? Worse still, what happens
| if we hit another AI winter? Are we left with an enormous pork
| barrel project? It's hard to envision the federal government
| industrial policy perfectly capturing future market needs,
| especially in such a fast moving industry as tech.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Is the U.S. responding to recent moves in the U.K. to make a
| national effort in this field (the U.S. does not want to be an
| also-ran)? Are they responding to the efforts in China?
|
| Do they know something more than we do with regard to the
| efficacy of current or soon-to-come AI? Or is it purely a
| speculative business/economic move?
| fullshark wrote:
| They know that the next war will involve computer vision /
| sensor data + countless decisions made by computers based on
| that data.
| torginus wrote:
| Why is it that the Biden admin is doing two years worth of
| governing in the last two weeks of their tenure?
| ajmurmann wrote:
| Most administrations do this at the end.
| cdme wrote:
| Because the next administration is going to do 0 years of
| governing in 4.
| exe34 wrote:
| what are you going to do? vote them out?
| harvodex wrote:
| President Blinken is trying to get a few last things he wants
| in before cashing out in the private sector.
| tartoran wrote:
| I have some unease about this. If it wasn't for recent
| advancements and hype around LLMs we'd probably get something
| rushed through but not with AI but crypto. The grifters will
| grift..
| m4rtink wrote:
| Mr. President, we must not allow a mine shaft gap!
| AyyEye wrote:
| Great, give away more BLM land to Unaccountable corps to pollute
| who are going to use it to run facial recognition, surveillance,
| and randomly delete accounts. Fantastic. What a beautifully anti-
| human future we have in store.
| AyyEye wrote:
| I wonder if open models are even going to be _allowed_.
|
| > require adherence to technical standards and guidelines for
| cyber, supply-chain, and physical security for protecting and
| controlling any facilities, equipment, devices, systems, data,
| and other property, including AI model weights
|
| > plans for commercializing or otherwise deploying or advancing
| deployment of appropriate intellectual property, including AI
| model weights
| edouard-harris wrote:
| At capability levels high enough that they credibly pose a risk
| to national security, they obviously won't be.
| sreejithr wrote:
| How can a language model pose a national security risk?
| AyyEye wrote:
| Governments everywhere are racing to attach them to
| weapons.
| sreejithr wrote:
| Genuine question. Regarding language models specifically,
| would it really have value to be strapped on weapons?
| jofer wrote:
| Less advanced things have been labeled a national security
| risk.
|
| It's currently quasi-illegal in the US to open source
| tooling that can be used to rapidly label and train a CNN
| on satellite imagery. That's export controlled due to some
| recent-ish changes. The defense world thinks about national
| security in a much broader sense than the tech world.
|
| See https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/06/20
| 19-27...
| paulddraper wrote:
| Encryption
| gred wrote:
| I'm struggling to describe the levels of skepticism that I'm
| feeling right now.
| swyx wrote:
| what is the meaning of doing this in the last week of the biden
| presidency? just trying to frontrun trump saying the same thing?
| Dowwie wrote:
| It's their production release. :) After 4 years of contracting
| to put this work together, they published the work. Trump
| administration will soonafter change it to suit their vision of
| the next 4 instead.
| jimpajack wrote:
| The Biden administration finally woke up and realized America
| should lead in AI. But instead of unleashing the free market,
| we're getting a laundry list of regulations, mandates, and red
| tape. Buckle up for the Big Government AI Plan
| elzbardico wrote:
| Yeah, let's funnel tax dollars to AI, so companies can fire
| office workers.
| seydor wrote:
| Picking a target makes that target already obsolete. I wonder if
| this is the beginning of the pop of the ai bubble
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Didn't they release something just yesterday that was doing the
| opposite?
| exe34 wrote:
| the opposite of building datacenters?
| davedx wrote:
| The analysis of this EO in these comments is disappointing.
|
| It contains a lot of good stuff, also on geothermal and nuclear;
| long term storage; improving power transmission infrastructure;
| attempting to address the impact of AI on electricity rates for
| regular consumers; improving data transparency and communications
| of interconnections; improving the permitting flow for critical
| (clean) infrastructure; and a bunch of other stuff.
|
| The likelihood of it all surviving the incoming administration
| seem low, but given how it aligns with already present structural
| trends (and downright critically important needs in terms of
| power infrastructure at least), there's a good chance some parts
| will.
|
| It's more an energy policy EO than an AI EO, and it's both
| ambitious and objectively positive for combating climate change.
| Maybe we could at least read the damn thing before filling the
| comments with low effort cynicism?
| sreejithr wrote:
| Thanks from India! The last time US imposed sanctions on
| Cryogenic rocket engines, India developed its own indigenous
| engine. This is the forcing factor other countries need to
| decouple from US leadership which it just proved cannot be
| trusted.
| notavalleyman wrote:
| I think the purpose of orders like this is not "we'll have the
| rocket engines and nobody else will".
|
| I think it's more like "we don't want our AI/rocket engines
| used in ways we'd feel awful about" or "used in ways that hurt
| us"
|
| It's not really a question of growing or destroying other
| nations' trust.
| trebligdivad wrote:
| It can't be a coincidence this comes a day after the UK published
| an 'AI action plan'
| https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ai-opportunities-...
| Invictus0 wrote:
| It definitely could be a coincidence.
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