GOLDEN — The U.S. Division of Vitality on Thursday recognized the Nationwide Renewable Vitality Laboratory campus in Golden as one in every of 16 websites throughout the nation the place it plans to enlist personal firms to develop huge knowledge facilities to energy the worldwide synthetic intelligence arms race.
The announcement about opening federal land to personal knowledge heart firms coincided Thursday with Vitality Secretary Chris Wright‘s go to to NREL, the place he toured analysis labs, gave a 10-minute speak to workers and mentioned plans for the company, together with the push to supply extra knowledge storage capability for advancing know-how.
The Vitality Division has recognized an 11-acre web site positioned west of the Flatirons important campus, close to the Rocky Flats Nationwide Wildlife Refuge, that “can be a great location for a knowledge heart facility,” in line with a “Request for Data on Synthetic Intelligence Infrastructure on DOE Lands” posted on-line Thursday.
The record of areas recognized as potential hosts for knowledge facilities included storied nuclear analysis services in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in addition to websites in Idaho, Missouri, Washington and Illinois.
“So we’re saying we’ve a bunch of land. Inform us the place you want to construct on these lands. Let’s make a deal. Construct a knowledge heart. Construct the vitality that provides that grid. Perhaps share some experience and intelligence. Perhaps share a few of your computing energy there with our nationwide labs,” Wright mentioned throughout a information convention. “I feel there’s quite a lot of room for issues to be carried out right here with only a extra inventive, commonsense framework that we’re attempting to convey to this authorities.”
The NREL campus has sufficient land, energy, water and broadband functionality to host a 100-megawatt knowledge heart, and development may start as early as this 12 months, the request-for-information doc mentioned.
“By means of this undertaking, NREL may assist the U.S. set up world AI dominance and speed up the transformation of the U.S. knowledge heart business by dramatically lowering development timelines, enabling the U.S. to quickly deploy vital AI infrastructure at scale,” the doc mentioned. “NREL goals to ascertain a web site the place a developer can proceed its regular enterprise operations whereas utilizing the positioning as a proving floor. The strategy wouldn’t solely enable the developer to concentrate on its enterprise targets but additionally present nationwide stakeholders with invaluable insights into accelerating AI knowledge heart development and energy deployment, paving the way in which for future business improvements.”
In a 20-minute information convention, Wright mentioned the intention is to ask personal firms onto federal land to do enterprise in a public-private partnership. That would imply the federal authorities leases the land to an organization or the info heart developer reserves a few of its capability for NREL’s work, as a result of the federal lab additionally depends on knowledge facilities.
“It will be a industrial association utilizing our land to get some worth out of it with a non-public firm,” Wright mentioned.
NREL’s Flatirons Campus is a 305-acre web site the place greater than 1,000 folks analysis and invent methods to enhance and strengthen the vitality grid. It has sufficient house so as to add a number of hundred thousand sq. ft of further buildings.
The Trump administration’s transfer follows an government order signed in January by outgoing President Joe Biden that sought to take away hurdles for AI knowledge heart enlargement within the U.S. whereas additionally encouraging these knowledge facilities, which require giant quantities of electrical energy, to be powered with renewable vitality.
Whereas President Donald Trump has since sought to erase most of Biden’s signature AI insurance policies, he made clear after returning to the White Home that he had no real interest in rescinding Biden’s knowledge heart order.
“I’d wish to see federal lands opened up for knowledge facilities,” Trump mentioned in January. “I feel they’re going to be crucial.”
Whereas the tech business has lengthy relied on knowledge facilities to run on-line providers, from e mail and social media to monetary transactions, new AI know-how behind fashionable chatbots and generative instruments requires much more highly effective computation to construct and function.
A report launched by the Division of Vitality late final 12 months estimated that the electrical energy wanted for knowledge facilities within the U.S. tripled over the previous decade and is projected to double or triple once more by 2028, when it may devour as much as 12% of the nation’s electrical energy.
America, below each presidents, has been dashing up efforts to license and construct a brand new technology of nuclear reactors to provide carbon-free electrical energy.
Whereas Biden’s government order centered on powering AI infrastructure with clear vitality sources akin to “geothermal, photo voltaic, wind and nuclear,” Thursday’s assertion from Trump’s vitality division centered solely on nuclear. However in a prolonged request for data sought from knowledge heart and vitality builders, the company outlines quite a lot of electrical energy sources accessible at every web site, from photo voltaic arrays to gasoline generators.
Colorado already is asking how it will likely be in a position to present sufficient electrical energy for the surging demand for knowledge facilities because it phases out coal-burning energy vegetation.
Knowledge facilities include controversy, particularly within the American West, the place water is a invaluable however vanishing useful resource. Knowledge facilities use tons of of hundreds of gallons of water to chill their services. In addition they require an infinite quantity of electrical energy, which regularly requires the burning of extra fossil fuels, creating extra greenhouse gasoline emissions that speed up local weather change.
A 100-megawatt knowledge heart would use sufficient electrical energy to energy about 20,000 properties.
When requested from the place NREL would draw sufficient water and electrical energy to assist a 100-megawatt knowledge heart, Wright mentioned the Vitality Division would ask personal builders to additionally construct {the electrical} capability to run their methods. A map included with the request for data exhibits close by Xcel Vitality substations in addition to further house for windmills, photo voltaic and battery storage.
“You’re going to co-locate energy,” Wright mentioned. “You’re going to construct a knowledge heart, and also you’re going to construct the facility and sources to energy it.”
He didn’t reply the place the required water would come from.
The Related Press contributed to this report.
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