Bill 2443 would create Technology Innovation Fund for ITS, divert cloud-fee revenue to AI hub

Chairman Williams introduced Bill 2443 as enabling legislation to create a Technology Innovation Fund overseen by the state information technology service (ITS). Williams said the bill would redirect a 1% fee applied to cloud-related services — described as IaaS (infrastructure as a service) and SaaS (software as a service) — that currently flows into the general fund, and give ITS authority to use those monies to set up an AI innovation hub and related resources.

Williams described several aims: an AI innovation hub, a cloud center of excellence, enterprise-wide innovation support and a central source of subject-matter expertise for agencies that lack strong IT staffs. He said the fund would help agencies achieve economies of scale, offer sandbox environments to pilot tools and collect lessons learned, and provide opportunities for local stakeholders and community colleges. “They've come up with this model currently on IaaS, which is infrastructure as a service, software as a service. We've heard about cloud related, professional services. These have a 1% fee that's tacked onto them. It's been going into the general fund,” Williams said.

A committee member asked whether there would be a review mechanism to ensure fund objectives are met. Williams said reports would be provided to the chairs of the technology committees, the lieutenant governor and the speaker of the house, and acknowledged the bill is enabling legislation that would likely require an appropriations transfer to move revenues into the new fund. He also said private contributions could be accepted and that guardrails would be applied to sandboxes because the technology and AI needs are evolving.

After questions, a member moved the bill. The committee recorded a vote in favor and the chair announced the bill will proceed; no roll-call vote or numerical tally was recorded in the transcript. The chair also noted related single-referred bills will be considered at the next meeting.