Biden orders federal land to be leased for AI data center development

Marrying ambitions for leadership in AI innovation with clean energy goals, the EO will ask the Departments of Defense and Energy to lease federal land sites to private sector entities to construct frontier AI data centers “at speed and scale,” supported by renewable energy.

The order also aims to harness clean energy resources to further protect surrounding communities and environments, while mitigating rising utilities costs for American consumers. 

“Building AI infrastructure is also vital to America’s continued economic competitiveness. 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,” the order’s announcement read. 

The Department of Interior will lead the effort to identify lands suitable for data center construction, while simultaneously enhancing permitting for corresponding geothermal energy projects. Energy will then take further steps to promote distributing resources to power these data centers.

Participating agencies will be expected to allocate resources, namely staff, towards prioritizing the launch of this infrastructure. They will also identify other opportunities to accelerate permitting at federal land sites by applying “categorical exclusions” — which function as a fast form of review within the National Environmental Policy Act — for data centers that will not “significantly affect the environment.”

Private sector developers working with federal agencies to build out these data centers will also be held to several obligations. These include paying the full cost of building and operating the AI-focused data centers, ensuring clean energy can be delivered to match capacity demands, strengthening lab security requirements, meeting demand for semiconductor needs and ensuring quality labor standards. 

This EO precedes an anticipated cybersecurity executive order that is expected to call for leveraging AI as a tool in the nation’s cyberdefenses. The White House also recently issued new export controls on AI products. The deluge of tech-centric executive actions during the final days of Biden’s administration breeds further questions as to what the incoming Trump administration will keep and reject.

Regarding this order, industry analysts reacted favorably to the potential increase in AI-related infrastructure. The Information Technology Industry Council's executive vice president of public sector policy, Gordon Bitko, said that continued U.S. leadership in AI will depend on similar commitments to the technology’s basic development and deployment, which includes essential infrastructure like data centers.

“Fostering the U.S. tech industry’s ability to work with the government and other partners to solve existing challenges such as permitting and electricity transmission will enable the U.S. to construct state-of-the art data centers powered by a resilient and diversified infrastructure,” Bitko said in a statement to Nextgov/FCW. “We urge the incoming Trump Administration to continue to work with industry to build the capacity the U.S. needs to advance this economic and security imperative.”