AI Giants Push U.S. Lawmakers to Modernize Energy & Data Access

Top AI leaders urge U.S. lawmakers to streamline energy permitting and unlock government data for AI progress, warning that outdated infrastructure threatens America’s competitive edge. Discover why Microsoft, OpenAI, AMD, and CoreWeave are demanding urgent action.

AI Giants Push U.S. Lawmakers to Modernize Energy and Data Access

In a pivotal moment for America’s technological future, the heads of top artificial intelligence companies—including Microsoft, OpenAI, AMD, and CoreWeave—appeared before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee this week, warning that the nation’s aging energy infrastructure is buckling under the growing demands of AI. Their message: If the U.S. wants to maintain its global leadership in artificial intelligence, lawmakers must streamline federal permitting processes, expand energy generation, and unlock critical government data sets for AI training.

Outdated Infrastructure Threatens AI Growth

Microsoft President Brad Smith sounded the alarm bluntly: “America’s advanced economy relies on 50-year-old infrastructure that cannot meet the increasing electricity demands driven by AI, reshoring of manufacturing, and increased electrification.” His written testimony, reviewed by Reuters, paints a stark picture. As industries rush to integrate AI, from predictive analytics in healthcare to generative tools in entertainment, the foundational energy systems supporting this boom have not kept pace.

Smith’s call for reform underscores a broader industrial shift. The U.S. grid, designed decades ago for a fundamentally different economy, is now tasked with powering everything from electric vehicles to massive cloud data centers. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), data center energy consumption alone has surged dramatically, representing roughly 4.4% of total U.S. electricity use in 2023—a figure projected to jump to 12% by 2028 if left unaddressed.

AI’s Energy Appetite: A Growing Challenge

Michael Intrator, CEO of CoreWeave—a specialized cloud provider known for supporting heavy AI workloads—highlighted just how energy-hungry modern AI has become. “Millions of hours of training, billions of inference queries, trillions of model parameters, and continuous dynamic scaling are all driving an insatiable hunger for compute and energy that borders on exponential,” he explained in his testimony.

Recent studies reinforce this. For example, a 2024 report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) found that training a single large language model (LLM) can consume as much energy as 1,000 U.S. households use in a year. The implications are profound: without scalable, clean, and affordable energy sources, AI’s continued progress could be choked off by grid bottlenecks and skyrocketing operational costs.

Intrator called on lawmakers to “streamline the permitting process to enable the addition of new sources of generation and the transmission infrastructure to deliver it,” emphasizing the need for both regulatory reform and infrastructure investment.

OpenAI: More Chips, More Data, More Power

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, whose company is behind widely used tools like ChatGPT, offered senators a vision of AI’s next chapter. “We want to build a brain for the world and make it super easy for people to use it, with common-sense restrictions to prevent harm,” Altman stated. But doing so, he warned, requires not just ambition—but raw resources.

Altman stressed that improving AI systems will escalate demands for semiconductors, training data, supercomputers, and energy. This aligns with trends seen across the sector: recent estimates suggest that global demand for advanced chips, particularly GPUs, will double by 2026, driven largely by AI’s expansion into sectors like finance, healthcare, and autonomous vehicles.

AMD’s Push: AI Beyond the Cloud

Lisa Su, CEO of semiconductor giant AMD, framed the conversation around inclusivity and reach. For the U.S. to truly lead in AI, she argued, innovation must not be limited to cloud-based services alone. “Moving faster also means moving AI beyond the cloud,” Su said. “To ensure every American benefits, AI must be built into the devices we use every day and made as accessible and dependable as electricity.”

This vision reflects a growing movement toward “edge AI,” where machine learning models run directly on local devices like smartphones, laptops, and embedded sensors. By decentralizing AI processing, companies hope to reduce energy bottlenecks and latency, while bringing AI’s benefits closer to the everyday user.

Unlocking Government Data: A Strategic Advantage

Beyond hardware and energy, Smith from Microsoft raised another critical issue: data. He pointed out that “the federal government remains one of the largest untapped sources of high-quality and high-volume data.” Unlocking this treasure trove, Smith argued, could significantly accelerate AI training and innovation.

Other nations are already moving in this direction. China, for example, has aggressively leveraged state-collected data to train and refine its AI systems. The United Kingdom, meanwhile, has launched initiatives to make non-sensitive government data open and machine-readable, bolstering local startups and research efforts.

By making U.S. government data readily available—within the privacy and ethical boundaries—American AI developers could gain a vital edge in the global AI race, fostering breakthroughs across industries from climate science to public health.

Balancing Innovation with Responsibility

While the testimonies before the Senate painted an urgent picture, they also carried notes of caution. Altman, in particular, emphasized the importance of embedding “common-sense restrictions” to prevent harm. As AI systems grow more powerful, concerns about bias, misinformation, and misuse loom large.

A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 79% of Americans worry about how companies will use their data in AI systems, while 68% support stronger government regulation of AI. This underscores a tricky balancing act for lawmakers: how to foster innovation without compromising ethical standards or public trust.

A Call to Action for U.S. Policymakers

The unified message from Microsoft, OpenAI, AMD, and CoreWeave is clear: America cannot win the AI race on outdated systems. The nation needs modernized energy grids, faster permitting for new energy sources, expanded semiconductor production, and open access to government data—all while upholding responsible AI development.

As the global AI landscape accelerates, the stakes are high. According to McKinsey’s 2024 Global AI Report, nations that lead in AI innovation could capture up to 40% more economic value over the next decade compared to lagging counterparts. For the U.S., this isn’t just about tech dominance—it’s about ensuring economic resilience, job creation, and national security in a rapidly shifting world.

Building a Future-Ready AI Ecosystem

The testimonies delivered to the Senate Commerce Committee offer more than just industry wish lists; they provide a roadmap for how the U.S. can navigate the next phase of the AI revolution. By addressing energy bottlenecks, unlocking data, and fostering innovation at both the cloud and device level, lawmakers have an opportunity to position the U.S. as a global AI leader.

But time is of the essence. Without swift action, America risks falling behind nations that are moving faster to adapt. As Microsoft’s Brad Smith aptly put it, “The choices we make today will determine whether we win the AI race tomorrow.”

For policymakers, industry leaders, and everyday citizens alike, the question isn’t just about building smarter machines—it’s about building a future where those machines work for the benefit of all.

Source:  (Reuters)

(Disclaimer:  This article is a journalistic synthesis based on written testimonies provided to the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee and supplemented by recent data and expert insights. While every effort has been made to ensure accuracy and relevance, readers are encouraged to consult official sources and policy updates for the most current information.)

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