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Executive order on advancing United States leadership in AI infrastructure
- antithesis-nl 2y ago[flagged]
- dang 2y ago> Well, an entity indistinguishable from most LLMs (at least when it comes to hallucinations) will soon be in charge of the US, so that Leadership is pretty much guaranteed, it seems... Please keep flamebait, including partisan flamebait, off HN. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. The link is helpful thank you!
- antithesis-nl 2y agoI don't think I posted any flamebait, and if I inadvertently did, it was motivated by psychological science, not partisanship. But I've removed anything that would be controversial, I think?
- EmilStenstrom 2y agoSummary 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.
- Workaccount2 2y agoWith the incoming admin I can't imagine anything other than huge nat gas plants being built to power these data centers...
- culi 2y agoUN confirmed that we zoomed passed the 1.5°C 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 https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/01/1158891
- davis 2y agoIt 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/ 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 2y agoThe EO talks a lot about prioritizing clean power.
- Blackthorn 2y agoSomehow, I don't think the incoming executive cares about that.
- Jtsummers 2y agoIt's an executive order, not a law. The next president is free to issue his own and rescind it in part or in whole.
- digdugdirk 2y agoThat'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.
- jillyboel 2y ago[flagged]
- altruios 2y agoAre they just going to train LLM's themselves... LLM's are the hot topic today, but... Waiting for new architecture to drop.
- nfRfqX5n 2y agoCan someone explain the purpose of releasing this right before their administration is ending? Or am I misunderstanding something
- JackYoustra 2y agoIt becomes a default, which, even when it's at the pleasure of the president, substantially increases the chances of it continuing
- Pidaymou 2y agoThe 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 2y agoMaybe 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 2y agowhen 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 2y agoHistorically 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/pdf/2020-23780.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-10-26/pdf/2020-2... [1] - https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/22/executive-order-protecting-the-federal-workforce/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-action...
- api_or_ipa 2y agoIt'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 2y agoIs 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 2y agoThey know that the next war will involve computer vision / sensor data + countless decisions made by computers based on that data.
- oldpersonintx 2y ago[dead]
- torginus 2y agoWhy is it that the Biden admin is doing two years worth of governing in the last two weeks of their tenure?
- ajmurmann 2y agoMost administrations do this at the end.
- cdme 2y agoBecause the next administration is going to do 0 years of governing in 4.
- exe34 2y agowhat are you going to do? vote them out?
- harvodex 2y agoPresident Blinken is trying to get a few last things he wants in before cashing out in the private sector.
- tartoran 2y agoI 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 2y agoMr. President, we must not allow a mine shaft gap!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- AyyEye 2y agoGreat, 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 2y agoI 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 2y agoAt capability levels high enough that they credibly pose a risk to national security, they obviously won't be.
- sreejithr 2y agoHow can a language model pose a national security risk?
- AyyEye 2y agoGovernments everywhere are racing to attach them to weapons.
- sreejithr 2y agoGenuine question. Regarding language models specifically, would it really have value to be strapped on weapons?
- AyyEye 2y agoValue to you or me? Unlikely. Value to others who wish to cut the cost of killing, increase the speed of killing, or launder accountability? Undoubtedly. Siri, use his internet history to determine if he's a threat and deal with him appropriately. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI-assisted_targeting_in_the_Gaza_Strip https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI-assisted_targeting_in_the... > AI can process intel far faster than humans.[5][6] Retired Lt Gen. Aviv Kohavi, head of the IDF until 2023, stated that the system could produce 100 bombing targets in Gaza a day, with real-time recommendations which ones to attack, where human analysts might produce 50 a year Putting them on weapons so they can skip the middle man is the next logical step.
- gred 2y agoI'm struggling to describe the levels of skepticism that I'm feeling right now.
- swyx 2y agowhat is the meaning of doing this in the last week of the biden presidency? just trying to frontrun trump saying the same thing?
- Dowwie 2y agoIt'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 2y agoThe 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 2y agoYeah, let's funnel tax dollars to AI, so companies can fire office workers.
- nostradumbasp 2y agoWe need more poor, unemployed, disenfranchised people to get better at detecting threats at scale.
- seydor 2y agoPicking a target makes that target already obsolete. I wonder if this is the beginning of the pop of the ai bubble
- m3kw9 2y agoDidn’t they release something just yesterday that was doing the opposite?
- exe34 2y agothe opposite of building datacenters?
- davedx 2y agoThe 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 2y agoThanks 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 2y agoI 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 2y agoIt 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-action-plan/ai-opportunities-action-plan https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ai-opportunities-...
- Invictus0 2y agoIt definitely could be a coincidence.
- rolandthomas 2y ago[dead]
- LIzzyytujghf 2y ago[dead]