The authorities of many countries recognize artificial intelligence technologies as an important sector of the economy; the United States is no exception in this regard. The other day, according to Bloomberg, a meeting of members of the US government with the management of OpenAI and Nvidia took place in the White House, at which issues of developing the infrastructure necessary for AI were discussed.
Image source: NVIDIA
In addition to the CEOs of OpenAI and Nvidia, the event was attended by Anthropic CEO Dari Amodei, Google President Ruth Porat, Amazon cloud business executive Matt Garman and Microsoft President Brad Smith. The US government was represented by Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm.
The result of these negotiations, according to the White House press service, was the creation of an interdepartmental working group that will facilitate the construction of data processing centers in the United States and obtain permits for their construction according to a simplified scheme. The US Department of Energy has set itself the task of providing subsidies, credits and tax deductions to companies building such centers, subject to the use of electricity from renewable sources.
As noted earlier, the OpenAI startup intends to spend tens of billions of dollars on the development of data processing centers, the accompanying energy infrastructure, as well as increasing production volumes of the necessary semiconductor components. The company said: “OpenAI believes that infrastructure is life-changing, and building additional infrastructure in the United States is essential to the country’s industrial policy and economic future.” The corresponding plans will create 40,000 new jobs in the United States. In China, corresponding investments are aimed at making the country a global leader in AI by the end of the current decade, according to OpenAI.
A Google spokeswoman stressed that developing the US energy infrastructure will be critical for the country to achieve global leadership in the field of artificial intelligence. Combined with initiatives to develop chip production in the United States, according to the relevant ministry, the need for energy resources will increase by 15 or 20% over the next ten years. If in 2023, data centers in the United States consumed no more than 4% of all electricity generated in the country, then by 2030 this share will grow to 9%. The current US government intends to move towards these goals with the active use of renewable energy, as well as to develop stationary electricity storage systems and increase the efficiency of existing facilities. The government commission should conduct an analysis of the electricity consumed by data centers in the United States before the end of this year.