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Committee backs enabling bill to create Technology Innovation Fund for ITS to centralize AI and cloud services
Summary
Chairman Williams presented bill 24-43 to establish a Technology Innovation Fund, diverting a 1% fee on cloud services to an ITS-managed fund to support an AI innovation hub, cloud center of excellence and sandbox projects; the committee voted to approve and forward the bill.
Chairman Williams introduced bill 24-43 as enabling legislation to create a Technology Innovation Fund that would support an AI innovation hub and related enterprise technology work under the state’s Information Technology Services (ITS) agency. He told the committee the fund would divert a roughly 1% fee on cloud-related services that currently flows into the general fund and use those dollars to help deploy cloud services, build subject-matter expertise within ITS, and provide a central resource for agencies and local stakeholders.
“They're gonna have an AI innovation hub,” Chairman Williams said, describing ITS as the central source to assess and deploy AI and cloud services across state assets. He said the fund would back a cloud center of excellence and provide “sandbox” resources so ITS can pilot new approaches with guardrails while accounting for expenditures on the back end.
A committee member asked whether there would be a mechanism to review whether fund objectives were being met. An ITS representative said reports would be provided to the chairs of the technology committees, the lieutenant governor and the speaker of the House, giving legislative leaders an opportunity to review fund activity. Williams also said private dollars and other sources could supplement the fund, and he praised community college leaders and the state’s existing networks for their contributions to technology work.
Committee discussion emphasized oversight and flexibility: members said the bill creates an enabling mechanism rather than immediately spending specific appropriations. The committee voted in favor of the enabling legislation and cleared the item from the agenda.
Key details discussed at the meeting: the fund would pull a 1% fee currently applied to infrastructure- and software-as-a-service contracts (the amount described as “a few hundred thousand dollars” in current receipts), ITS would run the AI innovation hub and cloud center of excellence, and the legislation includes reporting and accountability provisions to legislative technology chairs and executive leaders.
