By Valerie Volcovici
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Interior Secretary and co-chair of a new White House energy council Doug Burgum on Friday called for every U.S. power plant to produce 10-15% more electricity to meet the growing energy needs to expand artificial intelligence across the United States.
“Winning the AI arms race doesn’t just take software developers. It takes more electricity,” Burgum told a meeting of U.S. governors in Washington.
“We’ve got to get every electrical plant in the country that’s producing energy to produce more – if they can expand by 10% or 15%, we want to do that,” he said.
Burgum, who co-chairs the newly-created National Energy Dominance Council with Energy Secretary Chris Wright, said the U.S. should avoid the example of Germany, which he said de-industrialized because it moved too quickly off of fossil fuels as it races to compete with China to become a leader in power-hungry AI.
He said the U.S. needs to also rapidly permit new power plants, build new transmission lines and natural gas pipelines to respond to energy demand.
(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
