Executive Order 14141
Executive Order 14141 of January 14, 2025
Advancing United States Leadership in Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Purpose. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a defining technology of our era. Recent advancements in AI demonstrate its rapidly growing relevance to national security, including with respect to logistics, military capabilities, intelligence analysis, and cybersecurity. Building AI in the United States will help prevent adversaries from gaining access to, and using, powerful future systems to the detriment of our military and national security. It will also enable the United States Government to continue harnessing AI in service of national-security missions while preventing the United States from becoming dependent on other countries’ infrastructure to develop and operate powerful AI tools.
Advances at the frontier of AI will also have significant implications for United States economic competitiveness. These imperatives require building AI infrastructure in the United States on the time frame needed to ensure United States leadership over competitors who, already, are racing to take the lead in AI development and adoption. Building AI in the United States requires enormous private-sector investments in infrastructure, especially for the advanced computing clusters needed to train AI models and the energy infrastructure needed to power this work. Already, AI’s electricity and computational needs are vast, and they are set to surge in the years ahead. This work also requires secure, reliable supply chains for critical components needed to build AI infrastructure, from construction materials to advanced electronics.
This order sets our Nation on the path to ensure that future frontier AI can, and will, continue to be built here in the United States. In building domestic AI infrastructure, our Nation will also advance its leadership in the clean energy technologies needed to power the future economy, including geothermal, solar, wind, and nuclear energy; foster a vibrant, competitive, and open technology ecosystem in the United States, in which small companies can compete alongside large ones; maintain low consumer electricity prices; and help ensure that the development of AI infrastructure benefits the workers building it and communities near it.
With this order, I provide a plan for protecting national security, preserving our economic competitiveness, revitalizing our energy infrastructure, and ensuring United States leadership in AI.
Sec. 2. Policy. It is the policy of the United States to enable the development and operation of AI infrastructure, including data centers, in the United States in accordance with five guiding principles. When undertaking the actions set forth in this order, executive departments and agencies (agencies) shall adhere to these principles, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law:
(a) The development of AI infrastructure should advance United States national security and leadership in AI. Meeting this goal will require steps by the Federal Government, in collaboration with the private sector, to advance AI development and use AI for future national-security missions, including through the work described in National Security Memorandum 25 of October 24, 2024 (Advancing the United States’ Leadership in Artificial Intelligence; Harnessing Artificial Intelligence to Fulfill National Security Objectives; and Fostering the Safety, Security, and Trustworthiness of Artificial Intelligence) (NSM–25). It will also require the use of safeguards to improve the cyber, supply-chain, and physical security of the laboratories at which powerful AI is developed, stored, and used. Additionally, protecting United States national security will require further work to evaluate and manage risks related to the powerful capabilities that future frontier AI may possess.
(b) The development of AI infrastructure should advance United States economic competitiveness, including by fostering a vibrant technology ecosystem. Already, AI is creating new jobs and industries, and its effects are being felt in sectors across the economy. The Federal Government must ensure that the United States remains competitive in the global economy, including through harnessing the benefits of this technology for all Americans. It must also promote a fair, open, and competitive AI ecosystem so that small developers and entrepreneurs can continue to drive innovation—a priority highlighted in both Executive Order 14110 of October 30, 2023 (Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence), and NSM–25—as well as to support secure, reliable supply-chain infrastructure for AI activities.
(c) The United States can and should lead the world in operating the next generation of AI data centers with clean power. Meeting this goal will require building on recent successes to modernize our Nation’s energy infrastructure; improve permitting processes; and support investments in, and expeditious development of, both currently available and emerging clean energy technologies, such as geothermal energy, nuclear energy, and long-duration energy storage used to store clean energy, as well as relevant supply chains. The United States must not be surpassed in its support for the development, commercialization, and operation of clean energy technologies at home and abroad, and the rapid buildout of AI infrastructure offers another vital opportunity to accelerate and deploy these energy technologies. To help ensure that new data center electricity demand does not take clean power away from other end users, result in resource adequacy issues, or increase grid emissions, the construction of AI infrastructure must be matched with new, clean electricity generation resources.
(d) The development of AI infrastructure should proceed without raising energy costs for American consumers and businesses, and it should have strong community support. The companies developing, commercializing, and deploying AI must finance the cost of building the infrastructure needed for AI operations, including the development of next-generation power infrastructure built for these operations.
(e) The development of AI infrastructure should benefit those working to build it. Meeting this goal will require high labor standards and safeguards for the buildout of AI infrastructure, consultation and close collaboration with communities affected by this infrastructure’s development and operation, and continuous work to mitigate risks and potential harms. The American people more broadly must safely enjoy the gains and opportunities from technological innovation in the AI ecosystem.
Sec. 3. Definitions. For purposes of this order:
(a) The term ‘‘agency’’ means each agency described in 44 U.S.C. 3502(1), except for the independent regulatory agencies described in 44 U.S.C. 3502(5).
(b) The term ‘‘AI data center’’ means a data center used primarily with respect to developing or operating AI.
(c) The term ‘‘AI infrastructure’’ refers collectively to AI data centers, generation and storage resources procured to deliver electrical energy to data centers, and transmission facilities developed or upgraded for the same purpose.
(d) The term ‘‘AI model’’ means a component of an information system that implements AI technology and uses computational, statistical, or machine-learning techniques to produce outputs from a given set of inputs.
(e) The term ‘‘clean energy’’ or ‘‘clean energy generation resources’’ means generation resources that produce few or no emissions of carbon dioxide during operation, including when paired with clean storage technologies. This term includes geothermal, nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, solar, wind, hydroelectric, hydrokinetic (including tidal, wave, and current), and marine energy; and carbon capture, utilization, and storage technologies (for which the carbon capture equipment meets the definition set forth in 26 C.F.R. 1.45Q–2(c)) that operate with fossil fuel generation resources, that achieve carbon dioxide capture rates of 90 percent or higher on an annual basis, and that permanently sequester the captured carbon dioxide.
(f) The term ‘‘clean power’’ means electricity generated by the generation resources described in subsection (e) of this section.
(g) The term ‘‘clean repowering’’ means the practice of siting new clean generation sources at a site with an existing point of interconnection and generation sources operating with fossil fuels, such that some output or capacity from existing generation sources is replaced by the new clean generation sources.
(h) The term ‘‘critical electric infrastructure information’’ has the same meaning as set forth in 18 C.F.R. 388.113(c).
(i) The term ‘‘data center’’ means a facility used to store, manage, process, and disseminate electronic information for a computer network, and it includes any facility that is composed of one or more permanent or semi-permanent structures, or that is a dedicated space within such structure, and operates persistently in a fixed location; that is used for the housing of information technology equipment, including servers, mainframe computers, high-performance computing devices, or data-storage devices; and that is actively used for the hosting of information and information systems that are accessed by other systems or by users on other devices.
(j) The term ‘‘distributed energy resource’’ has the same meaning as set forth in 18 C.F.R. 35.28(b)(10).
(k) The term ‘‘Federal Permitting Agencies’’ refers to the agency members of the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (Permitting Council) established under section 41002 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, 42 U.S.C. 4370m–1, as well as any other agency with authority to issue a Federal permit or approval required for the development or operation of AI infrastructure.
(l) The term ‘‘Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program’’ refers to the program established to provide an approach for the adoption and use of cloud services by the Federal Government, as codified in 44 U.S.C. 3607–3616 (as enacted by the FedRAMP Authorization Act, section 5921 of Public Law 117–263).
(m) The term ‘‘frontier AI data center’’ means an AI data center capable of being used to develop, within a reasonable time frame, an AI model with characteristics related either to performance or to the computational resources used in its development that approximately match or surpass the state of the art at the time of the AI model’s development.
(n) The term ‘‘frontier AI infrastructure’’ means AI infrastructure for which the relevant data center is a frontier AI data center.
(o) The term ‘‘frontier AI training’’ refers to the act of developing an AI model with characteristics related either to performance or to the computational resources used in its development that approximately match or surpass the state of the art at the time of the AI model’s development.
(p) The term ‘‘generation resource’’ means a facility that produces electricity.
(q) The terms ‘‘interconnection,’’ ‘‘interconnection facilities,’’ and ‘‘point of interconnection’’ refer to facilities and equipment that physically and electrically connect generation resources or electrical load to the electric grid for the purpose of the delivery of electricity, for which grid operators have granted all appropriate approvals required for those facilities and equipment to operate.
(r) The term ‘‘lab-security measures’’ refers to steps to detect, prevent, or mitigate physical, cyber, or other threats to the operation of a data center, to the integrity of information or other assets stored within it, or of unauthorized access to such information or assets.
(s) The term ‘‘leading-edge logic semiconductors’’ refers to semiconductors produced at high volumes using extreme ultraviolet lithography tools as defined by the CHIPS Incentives Program Notice of Funding Opportunity, 2023–NIST–CHIPS–CFF–01.
(t) The term ‘‘model weight’’ means a numerical parameter within an AI model that helps determine the model’s outputs in response to inputs.
(u) The term ‘‘new source review’’ refers to the permitting program with this name in 40 C.F.R. parts 51 or 52.
(v) The term ‘‘non-Federal parties’’ refers to private-sector entities that enter into a contract with the Department of Defense or the Department of Energy pursuant to section 4(g) of this order.
(w) The term ‘‘priority geothermal zone’’ refers to lands with high potential for the development of geothermal power generation resources, as designated by the Secretary of the Interior, including pursuant to section 4(c) of this order.
(x) The term ‘‘project labor agreement’’ means a pre-hire collective bargaining agreement that establishes the terms and conditions of a construction project.
(y) The term ‘‘surplus interconnection service’’ has the same meaning as set forth in Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Order No. 845.
(z) The terms ‘‘transmission facilities’’ and ‘‘transmission infrastructure’’ mean equipment or structures, including transmission lines and related facilities, used for the purpose of delivering electricity.
(aa) The term ‘‘transmission organization’’ refers to a Regional Transmission Organization or an Independent System Operator.
(bb) The term ‘‘transmission provider’’ means an entity that manages or operates transmission facilities for the delivery of electric energy used primarily by the public and that is not a transmission organization.
(cc) The term ‘‘waters of the United States’’ has the same meaning as set forth in 33 C.F.R. 328.3(a).
Sec. 4. Establishing Federal Sites for AI Infrastructure. (a) By February 28, 2025, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Energy shall, if possible, each identify a minimum of 3 sites on Federal land managed by their respective agencies that may be suitable for the agencies to lease to non-Federal entities for the construction and operation of a frontier AI data center, as well as for the construction and operation of clean energy facilities to serve the data center, by the end of 2027. In identifying these sites, each Secretary shall, as feasible and appropriate, seek to prioritize sites that possess the following characteristics, as consistent with the objective of fully permitting and approving work to construct a frontier AI data center at each site by the end of 2025:
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).
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