The US ramped up its efforts to stay at the forefront of artificial intelligence technology today. With the end of his term approaching, President Biden signed an executive order aimed at improving AI infrastructure in the United States. The order directs the Department of Defense to lease land for private sector AI tech firms to build massive AI data centers and outlines other steps to promote AI development on US soil.
The executive order arrives just after a slew of tech companies announced their latest AI processors at CES 2025. AMD launched multiple processors and GPUs built for their AI capabilities, including its flagship Strix Halo chips, known as Ryzen AI Max. Nvidia’s keynote at the start of CES 2025 kicked off a wave of new GPUs, bringing significant AI processing power to consumer systems. Desktop PCs and individual graphics cards with these GPUs are arriving by the end of the month, with more chips arriving soon. That’s in addition to the company’s cloud and data center AI products. It’s not surprising that the US is taking steps to ensure its position in the industry as this massive AI tech wave washed the globe.

Credit: Nvidia
The step mentioned in the executive order is the direction to the DoD to lease land for gigawatt-scale AI data centers. The order has several steps covering the basic responsibilities of government offices, including helping to connect the data centers to the electric grid. The order puts the burden of building and running the data centers on the private sector businesses that take on the leases.
Clean energy also gets a nod in the order. Companies building the data centers will have to make use of “sufficient clean energy generation resources to match the full electricity needs of their data centers, consistent with applicable law.” The order also lays out several other rules for private businesses using the land, including buying an “appropriate share of domestically manufactured semiconductors,” and “adhering to high labor standards.” One of the requirements is that businesses will need to help evaluate AI security implications and watch for risks to national safety or security.