On Wednesday, July 23, the White House released a formal initiative titled “Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan” (the “Action Plan”), a three-pillared agenda that the U.S. aims to employ in pursuing global AI dominance. This initiative builds on President Trump’s executive order from earlier this year titled “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,” and includes multiple policies that could significantly affect data center development and construction over the coming years. The Action Plan has three main goals:
1. Accelerate AI Innovation
The White House is focused on the continued introduction and expansion of policies that promote private sector-led AI innovation. To that end, the Action Plan intends to (i) reduce red tape and limit AI regulatory hurdles, (ii) foster open-source AI development by ensuring access to large-scale computing through financial market innovations, and (iii) invest in developing and scaling next-generation, AI-enabled manufacturing technologies. These policy measures could rapidly accelerate the pace and scale of AI progress and deployment across the economy and would require the development of significantly more AI infrastructure (i.e., AI data centers, power generation resources, and semiconductor fabrication facilities) than currently forecast by industry leaders.
2. Build American AI Infrastructure
Power is a crucial bottleneck in the accelerated development of AI. Currently, leading AI labs are highly compute-constrained due to limited data center capacity, slowing the pace of AI model development. A leading AI lab projects that the US will need to build 50 gigawatts of new power generation capacity by 2028, in large part to meet the demand for AI model training workloads.
Technology companies and financial investors, including private capital providers, are trying to solve this constraint by investing tens of billions of dollars into building hyperscale AI data centers and associated power generation facilities. Existing permitting processes, however, pose significant hurdles for project development.
Grid upgrade constraints and interconnection queue delays also create major challenges in bringing hyperscale data centers into commercial operation, and these problems have become materially worse in the last several years, even as substantial amounts of grid infrastructure rapidly approach the end of their design life.
The Action Plan proposes innovative and bold measures to remove permitting and power grid obstacles to AI development through the following potential big-picture solutions:
- Streamlined Permitting: Accelerate approvals for data center, semiconductor manufacturing, and energy infrastructure development. This includes:
- New Categorical Exclusions under NEPA: Simplifying environmental review processes for data center projects.
- FAST-41 Process Expansion: Applying streamlined permitting provisions to eligible data center and energy projects.
- Federal Land Availability: Identifying large-scale development sites for data centers and energy generation on federal lands.
- Developing AI-Ready Grids: Recognizing the increasing energy demands of AI, the administration emphasizes building a robust electric grid to support data centers and advanced manufacturing. Priorities include (i) stabilizing current grid resources by preventing premature decommissioning of power generation resources and bolstering grid reliability through back-up power sources; (ii) optimizing grid resources through grid management technologies and upgrades to power lines; and (iii) prioritizing the interconnection of reliable, dispatchable technologies while investing in the development of cutting-edge new generation technologies that could dramatically lower power costs and thus AI workload costs (including geothermal, nuclear fission, and nuclear fusion).
- Workforce Development: The administration proposes initiatives to address labor shortages in occupations critical to AI infrastructure. Efforts will focus on expanding workforce training, Registered Apprenticeships, and hands-on technical education.
- Bolstering Cybersecurity: The administration recognizes that AI data centers are of escalating geostrategic importance and thus potential targets of cyberattacks and exfiltration of proprietary AI technologies, jeopardizing their development and operation as well as America’s leadership position in AI development.
With refined permitting processes and expanded federal land access, resilient and maximized AI-ready power grids, targeted workforce development, and robust cybersecurity protections against malicious actors, data center stakeholders can expect reduced regulatory barriers and new opportunities for growth. Given the urgent political landscape, planning for and executing on the construction process requires nuanced consideration and more commercial strategy than ever. While data centers are vital to the ongoing infrastructural push, investors and lenders sponsoring these ventures will nonetheless require proven legal counsel to adequately hedge evolving risk and neutralize unforeseen pitfalls. At any rate, the White House’s Action Plan is poised to accelerate data center development to new heights, and time will tell whether further policies arise.
3. Promoting International AI Diplomacy and Security
Finally, the Action Plan looks to attain and leverage leadership in energy infrastructure abroad to maintain a global edge, and strives to ensure the responsible development, deployment, and use of AI while protecting national interests and supporting international stability. For AI companies and hyperscale data center owners, this means (i) exporting the full AI technology stack—i.e., hardware, models, software, applications, and standards—to America’s allies, (ii) enforcing stringent export controls on computing hardware and semiconductor manufacturing to counter adversarial advancements, and (iii) aligning global measures to protect AI intellectual property and infrastructure. Data center participants are especially positioned to support this broader global vision by driving innovation, energy efficiency, and security in collaboration with governments and private stakeholders alike.
For those engaged in AI data center development or construction, these initiatives present a unique chance to align your projects with national priorities while leveraging federal resources. The path forward is paramount, and the Trump administration has unambiguously given its endorsement (“Build, Baby, Build!”).
