Dive Brief:
- The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed a bipartisan bill to modernize the National Environmental Policy Act and fast-track federal approval of U.S. infrastructure projects, according to a press release from Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), one of the bill’s co-sponsors.
- The Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act seeks to limit the number of federal actions that can trigger NEPA project reviews in an attempt to accelerate the permitting process, according to the bill’s summary. The SPEED Act passed the House in a 221-196 vote.
- “The SPEED Act will help launch America into a future where we can effectively innovate and implement to revitalize our infrastructure, meet skyrocketing energy demands, lead the world in the AI race and work in harmony with our natural environment,” Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) said in a press release introducing the bill in July.
Dive Insight:
The permitting reform bill’s advancement comes as tech giants join the Trump administration in a massive push to expand the country's AI capabilities and infrastructure — demand that hinges on enterprise success with AI projects.
President Donald Trump launched the Genesis Mission in November, a coordinated national effort to build an integrated AI platform called the American Science and Security Platform. The U.S. Department of Energy on Thursday announced collaboration agreements with 24 tech companies, including Google, AWS, Microsoft, OpenAI and Nvidia to advance the Genesis Mission.
The Genesis Mission aims to converge AI and high-performance computing, enabling technology such as AI agents to evaluate experimental outcomes and automate workflows, David Appel, VP of global government, national security and defense at AWS, wrote in a blog post. AWS in November announced an investment of up to $50 billion in AI infrastructure for government agencies.
“What we’re building provides exactly these capabilities to meet the mission’s aggressive 270-day timeline and demonstrates current operating capability,” Appel wrote.
As tech companies invest aggressively in AI infrastructure, the SPEED Act’s next steps might not come too soon as it heads to the Senate for approval. CIO concerns about compute capacity amid rising cloud costs are partly fueling the rush toward infrastructure buildouts.
Microsoft spent $11.1 billion on long-term assets such as expanding data center sites in the quarter ending Sept. 30. But the company reported struggling with capacity shortages while facing growing demand from AI workloads, an issue felt among other tech companies as well. OpenAI entered into a $38 billion partnership with AWS to expand its cloud infrastructure access to support AI workloads last month.
Data centers will require $6.7 trillion worth of investment to keep up with demand for compute power by 2030, according to management consulting firm McKinsey & Company. Data centers equipped to process AI workloads are projected to need $5.2 trillion in capital expenditures, McKinsey said.
Hyperscalers are attempting to project AI needs based on uncertain factors, such as how enterprises translate AI into business value, according to McKinsey. Enterprises are already struggling to demonstrate ROI from their AI investments.
“If companies fail to create meaningful value from AI, demand for compute power could fall short of expectations,” the McKinsey report said. “Conversely, transformative AI applications could fuel even greater demand than current projections suggest.”
