Trump Cabinet Focused on Powering and Promoting US Artificial Intelligence Capabilities
The Secretaries of Agriculture, Energy, the Interior and the EPA administrator stress how they are focused on supporting the development of the energy needed to develop AI, which will keep the US ahead in the AI Race.
The Powering AI: Global Leadership Summit was recently held this week at Oklahoma State University’s Hamm Institute for American Energy in Oklahoma City.
This landmark, high-level event brought together national leaders from technology, energy, and academia to address a critical challenge: how to power the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) with reliable, scalable American energy sources.
I have underscored how much energy it takes to fuel AI capabilities in several of my posts on the subject. It is estimated that data center power demand will grow by 160% by 2030.
Obtaining that energy is clearly a priority for the Trump administration. The summit featured a notable lineup of U.S. Cabinet members and industry leaders, including Doug Burgum (Secretary of the Interior), Chris Wright (Secretary of Energy), Brooke Rollins (Secretary of Agriculture), and Lee Zeldin (Environmental Protection Agency Administrator).
While all the prominent members of the Trump Team seem exceedingly busy, Zeldin seems especially so. He was just in San Diego to encourage Mexico to clean up its Tijuana sewage situation, or face consequences. At this AI summit, he stressed that the EPA would essentially stay out of the way when it comes to extracting the necessary energy resources.
Zeldin was open to getting input from new and off-the-beltway sources, too.
While natural gas and gas-powered turbines emerged as the leading near-term solutions to meet surging energy demands, the summit also spotlighted other dependable sources — such as nuclear and geothermal — as vital components of a long-term, diversified energy strategy.
Zeldin invited attendees to share their ideas on how the federal government could facilitate energy industry growth.
“I want every single idea that you have, no matter how large it is, no matter how small it is,” he said.
So great to be with my friend, @epaleezeldin, here at @okstate Hamm Institute in OKC as we UNLEASH American energy!⚡️@POTUS was elected for a reason –– to put AMERICA FIRST! And that is exactly what we are doing. 💪🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/DIlbbZLb3l
— Secretary Brooke Rollins (@SecRollins) April 24, 2025
Energy Secretary Wright’s agency has been busy identifying 16 federally owned sites across the country that are suitable for the construction of new data centers and AI infrastructure. These sites include national laboratories, former uranium enrichment plants, and nuclear sites, all chosen for their existing energy infrastructure and potential for rapid development.
“Private data center companies, that’s where the capital is, that’s where the investment is and on federal land, we make a commercial arrangement with them,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said at a press conference Thursday at NREL.
The arrangement could be a combination of lease payments and an allocation of data center computing to the lab. “It is using our land to get some value out of it with a private company,” Wright said. “It helps the lab and helps the country by getting more data centers built.”
The underlying goal is to keep the U.S. in the forefront in the development of artificial intelligence. “We have a lot of land,” Wright said, “… and we want to win this AI race or at least stay in the lead.”
At @okstate Hamm Institute with @SecretaryWright & @epaleezeldin, driving @POTUS' vision of American energy dominance! @USDA, @ENERGY & @EPA are united to fast-track energy development & empower rural America’s role in energy dominance! 🇺🇸 ⚡ pic.twitter.com/5BkG9LKhsy
— Secretary Brooke Rollins (@SecRollins) April 24, 2025
Secretary Burgum has been keen on making sure all available energy resources are available for the development of AI. At another summit, he said losing to China in the race for artificial intelligence arms the current biggest “existential threat” to the our country.
“We need more electricity to win the AI arms race against China,” Burgum said, emphasizing the administration’s stance on securing more base-load power Friday during Semafor‘s World Economy Summit in Washington, D.C.
Burgum said the U.S. risks letting China get ahead on AI if it continues following past administrations’ strategies of focusing on the accelerated phaseout of fossil fuels such as coal and spending on renewable energy.
He said the pursuit of clean energy also puts Americans at a higher risk of grid failure, as renewables and battery storage technologies have yet to meet growing energy demand. Burgum said this is a greater risk than that posed by global warming, which is fueled by carbon and methane emissions that can be traced back to the burning of fossil fuels.
“Part of that destabilization, again, is this massive investment that we’ve made in intermittent … in some of the same mistakes that Britain, Germany and others have made with the idea … built around a premise that the biggest existential threat to the world is a degree of temperature change in 2100,” Burgum said.
Interestingly, under Secretary Rollins, USDA is executing a comprehensive AI strategy, with a goal of leveraging intelligent automation by combining AI and machine learning with process automation to enhance agricultural and food processing efficiency.
Let’s hope federal judges don’t get in the way of these good efforts.
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More energy at this point of time means more nuclear power. I’m not a big fan of nuclear power because of the waste issue. Even if you can agree where to put it nuclear waste needs to be restored for a long, long, long time.
There are now new generation nuclear reactors, small scale nuclear reactors, and thorium reactors. I don’t know what their waste issues are or whether they are better or worse than the existing nuclear reactors.
Ultimately we need fusion power. To obtain achieve it we need more investments. It would probably make sense to co-develop it with as many countries as we could sign up. Any partners must contribute scientists and money, and not be a pain in the ass.
The waste created by nuclear plants is miniscule, relative to the power produced, and, also in comparison to the waste created by coal and natural gas plants, for the same amount of power.
Small modular nuclear reactors are where the sweet spot is attained, in terms of capital cost, plant footprint and geographic suitability.
All the AI and data center power demand needs to be met locally. Build these projects where power can be generated, not halfway across the State or Nation from their power source. Nuke is probably up the best bet for reliability and efficiency. Start rewarding the communities where power can be produced by putting these high power demanding AI and data centers adjacent to them. Let’s not build the centers in some ‘cool’ coastal area without the ability or the will in many cases to produce electricity locally to serve their consumption. IOW don’t put the nice parts in ‘nice’ places but the ‘dirty’ power production elsewhere with mile upon mile of new transmission lines needed through rural areas to deliver power to a far distant project.
More energy – Good!
More AI – What could possibly go wrong!
“… and we want to win this AI race or at least stay in the lead.”
Yes! We want to beat China, which is using AI coupled with massive surveillance to implement the ultimate totalitarian state.
The Beast is coming.
AI allows us to review and summarize massive documents quickly…so its harder to hide items in massive bills.. As with all tools, it can be used for good or ill.
Agreed. The more powerful the tool, the better the good, and the worse the evil.
The tools are getting more and more powerful. Human nature is remaining the same.
The electrical and also water demands of these large AI centers is massive. The XAi Colossus center in Memphis started at 100,000 GPUs, now 200K GPUs requiring 310+ Mega Watts. Projected by end of year to be expanded to 1 million GPUs, requiring 1`,556 Mega Watts and by end of 2027, 3 million GPUs,
FWIW, average electrical power needed for 1 million homes is about 1.200 Mega Watts.
Great for Trump for expanding our energy infrastructure, but boo-hiss on his already finding new ways to pour it down a rathole before my energy bill even has a chance to come down. Last time a technological arms race became a federal mania, we blew way too much money to get to the moon, and then… nothing for the taxpayer. Except Tang and maybe Kevlar.
Tang existed long before Alan Shepard took that first ride in our first space capsule.
To be fair the space program also helped advance some widely used items/tech; cordless power tools, vacuum sealed food storage, solar panels, ‘fireproof’ clothing for firefighters, the foil emergency blankets. I seem to recall reading that memory foam was also a product out of the space program but not sure on this one.
Were going to need alot more wind generators. /s
I guess we have to have it.
A.I. is no match for common sense.
But, that is in short supply.
Our wise and fearless leaders must now send out for brains.