President Joe Biden this week issued one of his last executive orders, addressing the race to build domestic data centers and clean energy plants in order to retain America’s leadership in artificial intelligence.

Under this Executive Order, AI companies can apply to lease federal land from the DoD and DoE to build AI data centers.

The government already leases federal lands for energy production, including fossil fuel exploration and renewable energy projects. Under the executive order, by February 28th, the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Energy are supposed to find at least three sites each to host new AI data centers on land that their departments manage.

The executive order calls on the federal departments of Defense and Energy to each identify at least three locations for private-sector data centers. It seeks to balance construction, consumer cost and environmental impact.

The order calls for leasing federal sites owned by Defense and Energy departments to host gigawatt-scale AI data centers and new clean power facilities - to address enormous power needs on a short time frame.

President Joe Biden on Jan. 15 signed an ambitious executive order on artificial intelligence that seeks to ensure the infrastructure needed for advanced AI operations, such as