President Biden Signs Executive Order Advancing AI Infrastructure

President Biden has signed an executive order aimed at accelerating the development of AI-ready infrastructure in the United States.

The announcement points to recent advancements in AI that have shown to be of increasing importance to "national security, including logistics, military capabilities, intelligence analysis, and cybersecurity."

"With this order, I provide a plan for protecting national security, preserving our economic competitiveness, revitalizing our energy infrastructure, and ensuring United States leadership in AI," said Biden in the statement.

Biden acknowledged the international scope of the race to build AI, and how it's linked with national security.

"Building AI in the United States will help prevent adversaries from gaining access to, and using, powerful future systems to the detriment of our military and national security," said Biden in the announcement. "It will also enable the United States Government to continue harnessing AI in service of national-security missions while preventing the United States from becoming dependent on other countries’ infrastructure to develop and operate powerful AI tools."

The executive orfer contained five "guiding principles": 1) the development of AI infrastructure should advance United States national security and leadership in AI, 2) the development of AI infrastructure should advance United States economic competitiveness, including by fostering a vibrant technology ecosystem, 3) the United States can and should lead the world in operating the next generation of AI data centers with clean power, 4) the development of AI infrastructure should proceed without raising energy costs for American consumers and businesses, and it should have strong community support, and 5) the development of AI infrastructure should benefit those working to build it.

Industry reaction

The Fiber Broadband Association praised the order while also urging the prioritizaion of fiber as the technology of choice, and stated that easing permitting will help ensure the infrastructure is deployed.

“Yesterday’s Executive Order will help ensure that the U.S. has the AI infrastructure needed to be a global leader.  In addition to power, fiber connectivity is a vital aspect of AI data centers and their ability to transmit massive amounts of data quickly and securely," said Gary Bolton, FBA president and CEO.

"As this EO acknowledges, permitting continues to remain a roadblock for AI data centers- as it does for broadband expansion. The Fiber Broadband Association looks forward to working with the incoming Administration and Congress to remove barriers and expedite permitting for fiber connectivity, whether that be for supporting AI or delivering broadband.” 

Ivo Ivanov, CEO of global internet exchange operator DE-CIX, said in a statement that Biden's move came after a similar proclamtion in the U.K.

"Hot on the heels of the UK's announcement to turbocharge its economy with AI, President Biden has signed an Executive Order aimed at accelerating the development of AI-ready infrastructure in the US. This will include the establishment of state-of-the-art AI data centers and clean power facilities, addressing the rising demand for sustainable and scalable computing power," said Ivanov.

Ivanov says the infrastructure demands are driving this order.

"While AI technologies continue to evolve at pace, concerns over whether we have the network infrastructure in place to support and sustain it have gotten louder. This move by the Biden administration is, in part, a direct response to those concerns," he said.

Ivanov sees internet exchanges as a crucial element to enable the bandwidth and latency requirements that AI demands.

"AI primarily operates in one of two ways: inference, where models deliver real-time predictions and responses, and training, where models learn tasks by processing vast amounts of data. Both methods demand significant bandwidth and low latency, achievable only with a carefully balanced combination of state-of-the-art data centers, network infrastructure, and high-performance Internet and Cloud Exchanges, said Ivanov.

"Edge computing and an increasing number of geographically distributed and interconnected data centers will be needed to do justice to AI’s potential and revolutionize the economy. America’s move to develop this ecosystem in a way that is energy-conscious and sustainable will be an important milestone on the road to achieving next-generation, AI-ready connectivity."