AI Leaders Urge U.S. Senate to Accelerate Power Permitting, Unlock Government Data for AI Training
Top executives from Microsoft, OpenAI, AMD, and CoreWeave will testify before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday, pressing lawmakers to modernize power infrastructure and expand access to federal data to meet the soaring demands of artificial intelligence.
Key Points from Testimonies:
🔹 Brad Smith (Microsoft President)
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Warns U.S. AI development is hampered by “50-year-old infrastructure”.
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Calls for streamlined permitting for new energy sources and transmission lines.
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Urges Congress to unlock federal government data for AI training to stay competitive with China and the U.K.
“The federal government remains one of the largest untapped sources of high-quality data.”
🔹 Sam Altman (OpenAI CEO)
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Emphasizes growing global reliance on AI:
“We want to build a brain for the world and make it super easy for people to use it.”
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Says increased AI adoption requires more chips, energy, supercomputers, and training data.
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Advocates for “common-sense restrictions” to mitigate potential AI harms.
🔹 Michael Intrator (CoreWeave CEO)
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Highlights the massive energy appetite of AI:
“An insatiable hunger for compute and energy that borders on exponential.”
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Points to DOE projections: Data centers could consume 12% of U.S. electricity by 2028 (up from 4.4% in 2023).
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Urges faster approval of generation and transmission projects.
🔹 Lisa Su (AMD CEO)
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Argues leadership in AI means rapid data center expansion powered by reliable, clean, affordable energy.
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Stresses the need to extend AI beyond the cloud, integrating it into everyday consumer devices.
“AI must be as accessible and dependable as electricity.”
Context & Urgency:
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The Senate hearing, titled “Winning the AI Race”, comes as AI’s power and data demands grow exponentially.
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Leaders argue that regulatory inertia threatens U.S. competitiveness in AI against global rivals.
By linking national competitiveness with infrastructure and data reform, the tech leaders hope to align federal policy with AI’s exponential growth trajectory.

