(The Center Square) – Agencies across the federal government are developing data centers across the United States and implementing AI technology in health research after the announcement of President Donald Trump’s AI Action Plan on last week.
The AI action plan includes more than 90 federal policy actions aimed at rolling back environmental regulations, increasing domestic data center outputs, and integrating AI into operations.
“This plan galvanizes federal efforts to turbocharge our innovation capacity, build cutting-edge infrastructure, and lead globally, ensuring that American workers and families thrive in the AI era,” said Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
While the plan did not lay out a specific budget to develop AI, some moves inside the administration showcase how the administration is partnering with industry to develop AI centers and using it in health research.
The Energy Department named the Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky, and Savannah River Site as locations for private partnerships to build AI centers.
Each site is located on federal land and owned by the government. The Energy Department will open each site for private development and investment in AI.
“DOE looks forward to working with data center developers, energy companies, and the broader public in consultation with states, local governments, and federally recognized tribes that these projects will serve to further advance this important initiative,” said the department.
The AI action plan proposes eliminating “red tape and onerous regulation.” This includes allowing federal agencies to limit funding to states where AI regulations “may hinder the effectiveness of that funding or award.”
Legislatures in Idaho, Tennessee and Kentucky have not passed laws limiting data center development in the various states. However, South Carolina passed a regulatory change in April that increased price rates for electricity for large users, like data centers.
The South Carolina legislature has also looked at implementing a tax incentive limit on data centers, with the goal of preventing rate hikes for residents.
The regulations in Idaho, Tennessee, Kentucky and South Carolina could point to how the Trump administration expects states to regulate AI as its plans to develop data centers across the country.
The Energy Department will take submissions from private industry to further develop AI on the sites in Idaho, Kentucky, Tennessee and South Carolina and could select partners by the end of the year, a department press release said.
Golestan Radwan, chief development officer of the United Nations Environment Program, warned against the rapid development of AI data centers.
“We need to make sure the net effect of AI on the planet is positive before we deploy the technology at scale,” Radwan said.
While the energy industry braces to develop AI, the National Institutes of Health announced development of an AI agent that can analyze gene sets to help researchers understand complex molecular data.
The AI agent, GeneAgent, analyzes molecular data and helps scientists draw conclusions about how different diseases and conditions affect groups of genes individually and together.
A news release from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the AI agent “can lead to a better understanding of how different diseases and conditions affect groups of genes individually and together.”
In the statement, NIH recognized that AI is prone to “hallucinations” where content can be false, misleading or fabricated. The department said it tested the agent on more than 1,000 gene sets in preexisting databases to give the AI agent a genetic baseline with which it can analyze future gene sets.
Two human experts manually reviewed 10 randomly selected gene sets evaluated by GeneAgent to see if its self-review capabilities worked and found that 92% of GeneAgent’s decisions were correct.
Previous studies of AI’s impact on the health care landscape assert that the tool can save billions in research and development costs.
“The ability to reduce workflow and refocus most of a doctor’s attention on providing outstanding patient care has been made possible by systems that use AI and better data management,” wrote a team of NIH scientists.
The research team has also verified GeneAgent’s analysis of mouse melanoma cells as part of the testing process.
“GeneAgent was able to offer valuable insight into novel functionalities for specific genes,” the news release said. “This could mean knowledge discovery for things such as potential new drug targets for diseases like cancer.”
