The White House released “Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan” pursuant to President Trump’s January 23rd Executive Order “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence” which includes over 90 federal policy actions the Trump Administration will pursue in the near term.
Among other things, the White House proposes to: (1) loosen regulations to speed data center permitting and to expand energy supply for data centers; (2) roll back regulations that hinder AI adoption; and (3) withhold funds from states that place burdensome rules on AI technologies. The plan also calls for streamlining permitting under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by creating new categorical exclusions under NEPA to speed permitting and construction of new data centers. The Trump Administration also said it will made federal lands available for data centers and data center power generation infrastructure.