OpenAI has reportedly appealed to the Biden administration, arguing that amid intensifying global competition, it needs to build massive data centers that consume as much electricity as a large city to process more advanced artificial intelligence models.
Last week, a number of tech leaders, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and executives from Anthropik, Nvidia, Microsoft and Google, met with White House officials to discuss the future of the country's AI infrastructure.
Shortly after the meeting, OpenAI shared a document with the White House detailing the benefits of building a 5-gigawatt data center, which would consume the power of five nuclear reactors and enough electricity to power 3 million homes. According to Bloomberg News.
In June, it was reported that the tech company had asked clean energy company NextEra to find a site that could process 5 gigawatts of nuclear energy.
“We have companies saying, 'Can you show me a place where we can accommodate 5 gigawatts of demand?'” NextEra CEO John Ketchum told Bloomberg News in June. “Just think about it: That's the equivalent of powering the city of Miami.”
Ketchum declined to say which technology companies had made inquiries.
The memo argues that Chinese startups are becoming a competitive threat and says the US needs bigger data capacities to win the global AI race, Bloomberg News reported.
OpenAI is focusing on a single large data center being built in the United States with the possibility of expanding in the future, a source familiar with the company's plans told The Washington Post.
The 5 gigawatt facility would create tens of thousands of new jobs, boost gross domestic product and ensure the United States' lead in the AI race, according to the document.
The company is focused on expanding its AI infrastructure across the country, an OpenAI spokesperson told The Post.
OpenAI is focused on “ensuring that America remains a global leader in innovation, driving the reindustrialization of the nation, and ensuring that the benefits of AI are broadly accessible,” a spokesperson told The Washington Post in a statement.
With U.S. power projects stalled by supply chain issues and labor shortages, energy industry executives say even a single 5 gigawatt data center is a tall order.
Constellation Energy Chief Executive Joe Dominguez told Bloomberg News he has heard Altman is considering building five to seven 5-gigawatt centers.
A source close to OpenAI's plans told The Washington Post that this estimate is inaccurate.
OpenAI's documents do not provide a specific number of proposed data centers.
“Not only has what we're talking about never been done before, but as an engineer and as someone who grew up in this world, I don't believe it's even feasible,” Dominguez told Bloomberg News. “It's definitely not possible in the time frame that we have in terms of national security and timing.”
Last week, Microsoft announced a data center contract with Constellation Energy to revive part of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, the site of the worst nuclear disaster in US history.
The company plans to reopen the shuttered facility and supply nuclear energy to Microsoft for the next 20 years.
Technology industry leaders have repeatedly emphasized the importance of energy infrastructure in advancing AI efforts in the United States.
“We are at the beginning of a new industrial revolution.” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told CNBC: As he left the White House last week, he said: “This industry is going to produce information, and that takes energy. … So it's up to everybody to understand the needs that are going to come, the opportunities, the challenges, and then make sure we can do that in as efficient and scalable a way as possible.”
White House press secretary Robin Paterson told the Post that the Biden-Harris administration is committed to seeing data centers built in the United States “ensuring that the technology is developed responsibly.”
“We will continue to work with industry leaders to ensure that the AI infrastructure of the future creates jobs for American workers, is built in the United States, and runs on clean energy,” Patterson said in a statement.
Last week's meeting was attended by several U.S. power and energy companies and government commerce and energy officials.
