Trump administration's top 'scientific priority is AI,' energy secretary says
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright was quoted in a piece on Thursday declaring that America’s top scientific priority is AI.
While there is robust debate over how artificial intelligence will be regulated going forward and what safeguards will be mandatory, there is broad bipartisan agreement that this technology has the potential to change the way the world operates. Time Magazine responded to such trends by declaring this week, "The Architects of AI Are TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year."
One aspect of President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January that many saw as a sign of the times was that many of the tech world’s biggest power players were in attendance. This came precisely at a time when many such companies are looking for a more laissez-faire approach to regulation and energy to fuel this AI boom. The Trump administration itself is bullish on the future of American AI and the ability of American infrastructure to facilitate the energy it requires.
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"The Department of Energy has worked in tandem with other agencies like the EPA to slash regulations around the construction of data centers and power plants. Multiple studies have found that AI data centers are relying heavily on fossil fuels and stand to add millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere," Time Magazine noted. "In an interview with TIME, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright downplayed the environmental impacts. AI is the ‘No. 1 scientific priority of the Trump Administration,’ Wright says."
Dean Ball, a co-writer of Trump’s AI Action Plan, touted, "I don’t think any President has sent such a clear techno-optimist message in a very long time," and such optimism appears to be common in his administration.
"Secretary Wright believes nuclear fusion could become viable within just a few years thanks to advances in AI, which will in turn help solve the looming power crunch created by the data-center buildout," Time Magazine wrote.
Wright appeared to indicate that there would be a synergistic chain reaction, as "AI is going to help bring us fusion. Fusion is going to help us bring AI."
Artificial intelligence, which often depends on large data centers, uses a massive amount of energy. This energy is consumed not only when the AI is being used, but is even more intensely consumed when AI program models are being trained.
"Researchers recently found that the cost of the computational power required to train these models is doubling every nine months, with no slowdown in sight," Time reported in a separate piece. "As a result, the IEA predicts that in two years, data centers could consume the same amount of energy as Sweden or Germany."