By Timothy Gardner and Susan Heavey
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Top technology executives will meet with senior U.S. officials at the White House on Thursday to discuss the energy resources and infrastructure needed to power artificial intelligence, a person familiar with the matter said.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and White House climate officials are among the U.S. officials who will meet with the executives, the source said.
Granholm told Reuters in June that President Joe Biden’s administration was asking technology companies to invest in new climate-friendly power generation to cover their surging demand. The surge in demand from AI could complicate Biden’s target of decarbonizing the power sector by 2035 to fight climate change.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google senior executive Ruth Porat and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei are among the tech company representatives expected to attend, according to CNN, which first reported the meeting.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan as well as White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard will also take part, along with top Biden administration climate officials, CNN said.
“President Biden and Vice President Harris are committed to deepening U.S. leadership in AI by ensuring data centers are built in the United States while ensuring the technology is developed responsibly,” White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson said in the CNN report.
Generative AI, or GenAI, can create text, photos and videos in response to open-ended prompts. It has generated buzz about its potential uses such as relieving mundane tasks but also prompted fears about potential misuse.
It also affects the energy and metals industry as U.S. technology companies seek to secure a shrinking supply of electricity for their rapidly expanding AI and cloud computing data centers.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Timothy Gardner; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Jonathan Oatis)
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