Subcommittee hearing: lawmakers and industry warn U.S. must speed energy, fiber and permitting to power AI

At a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing, industry and academic witnesses told members that U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence depends on rapid expansion of energy supply, fiber capacity to data centers and streamlined permitting.

Chip Pickering, chief executive officer of Encompass, told the panel that “in the next 5 years, fiber capacity to the data center is projected to ... multiply 6 times,” and said the U.S. must treat energy, fiber and data-center buildout as a single “AI infrastructure” market.

Why it matters: training and operating large AI models requires large, sustained amounts of power and high-capacity connectivity. Witnesses said meeting that demand will require both additional generation and more efficient computing hardware.

Industry detail: Ronnie Vasishta, senior vice president of telecom at NVIDIA, said advances in accelerated compute have delivered much higher “performance per watt” and that continued improvements in chip and system design will be necessary but not sufficient. Vasishta told the committee that “the massive scale of deployment to be competitive in AI will require more energy even though we are improving energy efficiency.”

Permitting and siting: Pickering and other witnesses urged permitting reforms to shorten approval timelines. Pickering recommended time‑certain reviews, “one touch” make‑ready processes for pole and right‑of‑way work, and multistate permitting mechanisms for major projects. He described long delays at railroad crossings and cited cases where crossing fees and holdups made deployments economically unviable.

Longer‑term supply: witnesses and members discussed small modular reactors and other advanced generation as options to provide dedicated, low‑footprint power to data centers. Pickering pointed to industry partnerships deploying new nuclear technologies as examples of potential long‑term solutions.

Context and next steps: members from both parties asked for legislative steps to accelerate permitting, clarify interagency roles and preserve incentives in federal broadband programs that they said remain critical to closing the infrastructure gap.

Ending: witnesses urged Congress to act quickly to align permitting, energy planning and fiber deployment with the rapid growth in AI demand so U.S. companies can compete globally.