Transcript: US Lawmakers Probe AI's Role in Energy and Climate

On Wednesday, April 9, 2025, the US House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing titled “Converting Energy into Intelligence: The Future of AI Technology, Human Discovery, and American Global Competitiveness.” Witnesses included:

• Dr. Eric Schmidt, Chair, Special Competitive Studies Project (written testimony)
• Manish Bhatia, Executive Vice President of Global Operations, Micron Technology (written testimony)
• Alexandr Wang, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Scale AI (written testimony)
• The Honorable David Turk, Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University (written testimony)

What follows is a lightly edited transcript of the discussion. Please refer to the original audio while quoting.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Good morning everybody. The committee will come to order. Welcome everybody of the committee back. We appreciate everybody being back this morning for, I think it's going to be an absolutely exciting hearing and I will recognize myself for five minutes for an opening statement. And I want to thank our witnesses for being here and traveling long distance to be here. This kind of came from a library of Congress, this hearing from a presentation that Dr. Schmidt put on his book, Genesis, that he wrote with Henry Kissinger, Henry Kissinger's last book. And I walked away thinking we needed to have the entire Congress hear your presentation. And so we're doing it with the entire Energy and Commerce committee because I think an author always wants to know when they write a book, will somebody read my book? And then if they read the book, then will it have an impact?

Well, today you and all the witnesses are before the full Energy and Commerce committee and our dear colleague and the dear husband of our colleague, Debbie Dingell, used to say that if it's moving it's energy, if it's stopped its commerce, something to that effect. So we have a lot of jurisdiction. I say it takes energy to move commerce. I can't improve on Chairman Dingell, but that's my version of it. And so we're having a full hearing. We typically do this in subcommittee, but this touches all jurisdictions and I think everybody needs to hear it. If you think about it's going to take enormous energy to beat China to AI. In doing that, we have to protect the environment. Our telecom and privacy through our commerce and telecom committees will be dealing with this. And AI has particularly healthcare applications. So it touches all of our jurisdiction.

And Dr. Schmidt, when I walked away from the Library of Congress and I read your book, it gave me a sense of mission and the mission that a direction I want to take this committee in the time that I'm Chairman. And to sum up what you said, it's the US versus China and who will win the war for AI. And it essentially, I walked away, this is as important as the dollar being the reserve currency in the world. It's that important. And that's what's before us. What I hear from people in this space is that we have the brain power and we have the capital. What we need is the energy and the correct regulatory framework. And we have an example of what not to do. And I believe you said Europe in your presentation, Europe has chosen not to grow. So we can't look there as an example.

We have to work through it ourselves. And in Europe is regulatory framework. Their energy framework and regulatory framework. Some of their regulatory framework written specifically to disadvantage American companies has made them non-competitive. And the Europe and the US had a similar size economy in 2008. And I've read that our economy is about 80% larger. So what do we need to do? And the reason we want to do a full committee is that we have to have broad consensus on how we work together. It has to be Democrat and Republican people who tell me they invest. It's tough to invest based on congressional cycles or presidential cycles that the rules are going to change every two to four years. And so what I would like to hopefully we could do in this committee has come up with a regulatory framework and an energy policy that we can all or most of us can agree on, at least build a broad consensus on how we develop massive of energy while protecting our environment.

And Dr. Schmidt, you said all energy resources are needed and then AI will develop solutions to deal with climate change. And so Microsoft, to put this in perspective, Microsoft Data Center can use as much power as a city of Seattle is what I've been told. And so in the regulation side of it, we have to protect our privacy. Yesterday we had a hearing our bills yesterday on children's privacy and children's safety, and we have to protect our privacy. I think all of us want our privacy protected. We can't do it in a heavy handed way that stifles innovation. And as I said, we have to look at our friends across the Atlantic, but I think we need to more intently look across the Pacific to a nation determined to win. China has specifically said they are going to win the war on AI, and we are taking up the challenge to prove to them that the American entrepreneur and the American intellect will win the war on AI, but they have to have the energy and the regulatory environment to do so.

So if this committee gets it right, this committee gets it right, America will win. It may win otherwise, but we need to be there to make that happen. And if you look at what if China wins, we just had a hearing, an oversight that a medical device from China had an embedded URL to the University of Beijing. So why did that mean a medical advice? Because we know they're using everything they can, everything they can to get information they need on us. So we must win, we will win. And for the sake of the world, we have to win. And I'm determined through this hearing to the beginning that all of us will work together because all of us are dedicated to winning. And I'll yield back and recognize the Ranking ember for five minutes for an opening statement.

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under normal circumstances, today's hearing would be a bipartisan conversation on ensuring America continues to lead the race on artificial intelligence or AI. However, these are not normal times. President Trump is single-handedly destroying our economy since he unnecessarily instigated a global trade war. Our markets are in turmoil. American's retirement savings is in free fall and prices for everyday goods are spiking. In fact, Trump's tariffs are the largest middle-class tax increase in at least 50 years on hardworking American families. And our efforts to continue to lead the global race on AI innovation are seriously threatened when Trump has just spiked the price on materials we need to compete such as steel, aluminum, and chips. Instead of winning the future, Trump's economic turmoil could send America's tech leadership into a tailspin. There's no doubt that the daily chaos and uncertainty that Trump is creating is not good for American business or for the American people, despite the unwillingness of the President and Republicans to acknowledge any of the harm their actions are having on American families.

I want to address the topic of today's hearing because it is so important. As we have heard in every energy subcommittee hearing this year, increased energy demand is coming largely powered by data centers fueling artificial intelligence tools. And I firmly believe that this increased demand can be a good thing, but it must be managed responsibly. We must make sure that AI-driven energy demand increases don't make electricity unaffordable or unreliable for American families. We must also make sure that consumers aren't stuck bearing the cost for infrastructure investments made necessary by private companies. And we must get a better understanding of just how much energy demand will increase in the coming years. The committee needs to be talking about all these things, but instead this week, House Republicans are poised to vote on a budget resolution that will set the stage to repeal the energy tax credits, incentivizing well over 90% of the electricity generation poised to come onto the grid.

The Trump administration and Elon Musk, DOGE minions are also putting together a secret list of grants and loans that they want to cancel that would modernize our electric grid and build new energy generation. Meanwhile, yesterday afternoon, Trump signed several executive orders to allow polluting coal plants to set for retirement to continue to operate increasing prices and health risks for American families. And just last month during his speech to the joint session of Congress, Trump threatened to repeal the Chips and Science Act, which invested $52 billion to ensure more semiconductors are produced right here in the US. Semiconductors are critical to the advancement of AI, but right now the overwhelming majority are produced outside the United States and the Chips and Science Act is boosting production of chips here and now Trump wants to repeal the law, so Republicans constantly talk about winning the AI race, but the actions they're taking make it appear as if they're purposely trying to lose that race to China.

And we should also discuss the tremendous effects AI will have on our everyday lives. We've seen an explosion of AI systems and tools that have been trained on massive amounts of Americans' personal information without our knowledge and consent. Right now, sufficient guardrails do not exist to protect Americans and our data from harmful AI systems that violate our privacy, provide false information or make unjustifiable discriminatory decisions. Because many of these systems are trained on massive amounts of data that big tech has collected on all of us, the lack of nationwide protections around what data companies can collect, use and sell to train these AI systems should concern every American clearly defined privacy and data security rules are critical to protect consumers from existing harmful data collection practices and to safeguard them from the growing privacy threat that AI models pose. So I strongly believe that the bedrock of any AI regulation must be privacy legislation built on the principle of limiting the amount of consumer data collected, used and shared. It is the best way to address the aggressive and abusive data collection practices of big tech and data brokers ensure our children's sensitive information is protected online and put consumers back in control of their data. So I look forward to hearing from today's witnesses and intend to continue to focus on developing policies that harness the transformation power of AI while safeguarding the rights and wellbeing of all Americans and with that I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Thank you. The gentleman yields back and we now conclude with member opening statements. The Chair would like to remind members that pursuant to the committee rules, all members opening statements will be made part of the record. I'd also remind members that once we get to the five-minute questioning, we'll have to strictly enforce that we have a time constraints with some of our witnesses, and I want everybody to have the chance to ask their questions. I would like to thank the witnesses for being here today and you're taking time to testify before this committee is greatly appreciated. You'll have the opportunity to give an opening statement followed by a round of questions for members and our witness. I'll read the witnesses and I'll call on you individually to read for your opening statement. So first, we have Dr. Eric Schmidt, Chair of the Special Competitive Studies Project.

Dr. Schmidt previously served as the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Google. In addition to serving as executive chairman and technical advisor, his time at Google would turn the company into the global tech giant. We know it today In 2021, he founded the nonpartisan special Competitive Studies Project to strengthen America's longterm competitiveness regarding AI and America's future. And also the author, as we said in a Library of Congress spokesman of the book Genesis he wrote with Dr. Kissinger. So thank you for being here. Dr. Manish Bhatia, Mr. Manish Bhatia, Executive Vice President of Global Operations with Micron Technology. Mr. Bhatia has been with Micron since 2017 and has 25 years of engineering and operations experience. He has previously held positions at Western Digital Corporation, Sandis Corporation and Matrix Semiconductor to name just a few, the Honorable David Turk, a visiting fellow with the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University School of International Public Affairs.

Mr. Turk served as the Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Energy during the Biden administration. Before his time as Deputy Secretary, Mr. Turk spent several years at the International Energy Agency. Thank you for being here as well. And Mr. Alexander Wang, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Scale AI. Mr. Wang founded scale AI as a 19-year-old student in MIT focusing on the concept of humanity first artificial intelligence. Currently Scale. AI has a team of over 900 and is valued at nearly $14 billion. At 24, he is the youngest self-made billionaire in the world. So I thank you all for being here today and I'll call on each of you and I'll begin with Dr. Schmidt. You have five minutes for your opening statement. Thank you. And you'll see before you get started, you'll have a green light and when it gets to four minutes, I think a light turned yellow, so it'll kind of give you a warning in front of you. You have a minute and when it turns red, it'll be wrap it up so we can make sure we get all our questions in. So Dr. Schmidt, you're five minutes. You're recognized.

Eric Schmidt:

Thank you Mr. Chairman and thank you Ranking Member. Thank you all for being here. This is incredibly important. I'm here to tell you that I honestly believe that the AI revolution is under hyped and here's why. The arrival of this new intelligence will profoundly change our country and the world in ways we cannot fully understand. And none of us, including myself and frankly and anyone in this room is prepared for the implications of this. What's happening at the moment in our industry is that we're very, very quickly, for example, developing AI programmers and these AI programmers will replace traditional software programmers. We're building in the next year AI mathematicians that are as good as the top level graduate students in math. This is happening very quickly. You can look at this in a number of the products today. You think of AI as ChatGPT, but what it really is, is a reasoning and planning system that we've never seen before.

The implication of this is profound in terms of the way the algorithms work. They're going to need a lot more computation than we've ever had. They're going to need a lot more energy and I'll talk about that. What does the industry need? We need high skills, immigration, we talk to you about this every day. Light touch regulation around cyber and bio threats. We can talk about that and most importantly, we need the energy and the numbers are profound. What we need from you, if I may say that directly is we need energy in all forms, renewable, non-renewable, whatever. It needs to be there and it needs to be quickly. I and others are investing in things like fusion, which are incredible, but they're not going to arrive soon enough for the need. And I'll frame this at the end by my comments about China. So people are planning 10 gigawatt data centers.

Now, just to do the translation, an average nuclear power plant in the United States is one gigawatt. How many nuclear power plants can we make in one year while we're planning this 10 gigawatt data center? It gives you a sense of how big this crisis is. Many people think that the demand of energy part that our industry takes will go from 3% to 9% of total generation. One of the estimates that I think is most likely is that data centers will require an additional 29 gigawatts of power by 2027 and 67 more gigawatts by 2030. Gives you a sense of the scale that we're talking. These things are industrial at a scale I have never seen in my life in the terms of energy planning. The current model is mostly natural gas peaker plants plus renewables, and that's probably going to be the path we're going to have to follow to get there.

And for all the reasons that you can imagine, we have a bunch of regulatory issues around fixing the energy grid. It takes on average 18 years to get the power transmissions and so forth to put these things in place. We need to find federal ways to preempt that and make it happen faster in order to deal with the needs. Many of these data centers, by the way, are in the heartland. They have a huge economic impact positively on areas that typically do not have the kind of growth that they would like. Now, why is this all important? When you build these systems, you have intelligence in the computer and then eventually human-level intelligence. Some people think it's within three to four years. Then after that you have something called super intelligence. And super intelligence is the intelligence that's higher than of humans. We believe as an industry that this could occur within a decade.

It is crucial that America get there first. What is China doing? They're leading in something called open source. They're very close behind us. You all have done a great job in doing chip restrictions and things like that to try to slow them down. They're clever and they're smart. They have industrial programs, huge grants going into these companies and they're weaponizing up in the sense of competition. If you look at DeepSeek, DeepSeek showed up. Nobody expected this. It turns out it's on par now with some of the top models. Welcome. China has arrived in the competition. What would happen if China beat us? Let's think about it. The path to intelligence, that superhuman intelligence. Think of the national security implications of that competition. This is why I believe, and I'll say directly to you, that although everyone is concerned about Taiwan, I'm much more concerned about this because if they come to super intelligence, the strong form of intelligence first, it changes the balance of power globally in ways that we have no way of understanding, predicting or dealing with. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Thank you. Thank you for that sober assessment. That's why we wanted to have this hearing. We appreciate that very much. Now we'll recognize Mr. Bhatia, you have your five minutes for your opening statement.

Manish Bhatia:

Thank you Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Pallone and members of the committee. My name is Manish Bhatia and I serve as executive vice president of global operations at Micron. Micron was founded in 1978 in Boise, Idaho, and over the last several decades has become one of the world's most innovative companies with more than 58,000 US patents granted, and Micron is America's only manufacturer of memory chips and the only US semiconductor company with worldwide technology leadership. Today, Micron is truly a national treasure. Micron has become fundamental to America's economic competitiveness because our labs manufacture the world's most advanced memory chips and are at the heart of the AI revolution for each AI chip that Nvidia sells, there are 96 high bandwidth memory chips integrated with it. Without our chips, there simply is no AI. Micron is the only company planning to invest more than a hundred billion dollars over the next 20 years to build leading edge memory fabs here in the United States, these investments will power America's AI leadership.

They'll serve domestic demand for other industries and drive US semiconductor exports. Our investments are projected to create 11,000 high paying direct Micron jobs, 9,000 construction jobs, and ultimately between direct and indirect 80,000 new jobs created across our expansions planned in Idaho, New York and Virginia, the President and Congress have made clear that the United States needs to continue to lead on AI and increase domestic manufacturing. The success of our investments will keep the US at the forefront of the AI revolution, strengthen the economy, and make America more secure. To make our historic and US investments, we need reliable and affordable energy. One of the most important factors that made upstate New York and Boise, Idaho attractive for our planned investments is reliable, low cost power. And in Virginia where we've been operating for two decades, grid reliability has been critical to our operations. Each of these full scale fabs built here will run 24 by seven by 365 days a year and consume at full, build out about 400 megawatts of power

By 2040, we expect our US energy demands to reach two gigawatts. This demand comes from a variety of highly complex manufacturing process steps, including using extreme ultraviolet lasers to create advanced nanoscale features on our chips. Beyond scale, we also need power to be reliable. Even fractions of a second of power loss or even just power SAG or droop forces us to reset equipment, check for inconsistencies and deviations in the material and ultimately can cost tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. Reliable power is critical to our US expansion. Historically, the United States has maintained low electricity prices due to the abundance of energy resources and it's all-of-the-above approach from oil and natural gas to solar and nuclear. This was a bright spot for Micron as we built here at home and is one of America's key competitive advantages in manufacturing. However, after years of matched supply and demand, we're now seeing significant electricity demand. Growth and supply may struggle to keep pace by one estimate US electricity demand could rise by 128 gig gigawatts more than 15% over the next five years alone. This risks the United States losing leadership in AI and in the technologies that enable it. Meeting this energy demand means the federal government needs to take an all-of-the-above approach and cut through red tape to bring generating projects to life. We also need to invest in energy equipment and supply chains. When I visited the Idaho National Lab last month to discuss their cutting-edge work on advanced nuclear technologies, it became clear how much investment is needed in uranium fuel supply chains and other new technologies. Beyond generating capacity and energy supply chains, we need to ensure the US transmission infrastructure is fit for the 21st century. Without new and updated transmission infrastructure, the new generation won't be able to be delivered to customers like us.

This is why permitting reform to accelerate transmission infrastructure is so important. Taking a step back and looking at manufacturing and AI more broadly. This also means continued investment in manufacturers that enable the AI revolution, micron and other US semiconductor companies building and operating fabs in the US experience cost deltas with our Asian competitors of 35 to 45% to ensure US global competitiveness. We are calling for an extension and expansion of the expiring semiconductor manufacturing investment tax credit. This will continue to enable the success of America's semiconductor manufacturing Renaissance. Finally, to echo Chairman Guthrie's remarks, having consistent reliable regulations, particularly in energy and permitting, allows Micron to make long-term manufacturing investments at home so the country can lead in manufacturing and in AI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Honorable Mr. Turk here recognized for your opening statement.

The Honorable David Turk:

Chairman Guthrie, Ranking Member Pallone and distinguished members, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. More importantly, let me thank you for this committee's concerted sustained focus on both the opportunities and the risks surrounding artificial intelligence. As someone who spent a lot of time in windowless rooms, including given my last four years as Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Energy, let me clearly state my bottom line upfront. Housing as many AI data centers as possible, especially cutting edge AI training models within our country is both an economic and a national security imperative. There is no more powerful and transformational technology facing our world. I've also found that the experts who understand AI the best are the ones who most forcefully stress the need for thoughtful, effective guardrails and protections. As a title of this hearing suggests we need to quickly affordably convert energy into intelligence.

The best numbers I've found come from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. In terms of what we need to prepare for in 2023, data centers used 4.4% of the overall electricity in the United States By just 2028 data centers, total usage will increase to between 6.7 to 12%. Let me share a three-part strategy to satisfy this increasing electricity demand. First, we need to maintain the full range of tax incentives, grants, loans, and other tools in our tool belt. Now is exactly the wrong time to make it more expensive to bring online new electrons, getting rid of just the technology, neutral production, and investment tax credits. 45 Y and 48 E will substantially raise the costs and delay our ability to power AI. A repeal of just these tech-neutral tax credits would also increase prices on average US households between $140 to $220 each and every year. Grants and loans, including from the bipartisan infrastructure law, are also vital.

Utility CEOs, developers, rural electric cooperatives are all urging Congress to retain these important tax grant and loan tools. Let us also remember that among others, the Independent Energy Information Administration predicts that a full 93% of additional capacity added to our grids in 2025 will be with renewables and storage. Finally, uncertainty whether caused by deliberations in Congress or President Trump's tariff policy will also chill needed near term investment to power AI. Second, we need to redouble all our efforts to more quickly permit new power generation and new transmission in our country without sacrificing important protections. Recent bipartisan efforts such as the Barrasso-Manchin Energy Permitting Reform Act provide a promising foundation for further progress. And third, we should more fully leverage public private partnerships, including with strategic use of federal land for cutting-edge AI, something advanced by both the Biden and the Trump administrations. Ensuring cutting-edge AI data centers remain in the United States also gives our democracy a fighting chance to provide effective and efficient guardrails on AI technology.

Companies by themselves simply do not have all the requisite expertise, nor do they have a perspective that takes into account all relevant considerations. We need to fully leverage our biological, chemical and nuclear government experts to help companies red team new models to ensure they don't inadvertently empower terrorists in rogue states. We've made some progress including voluntary cooperation with companies, but we must do more and we must must also be a top priority to protect public trust and democracy. Let me conclude by reiterating what I heard from you very clearly, Mr. Chairman, and I think we'll hear again and again throughout this hearing. We are in a global AI race. The stakes are too high for us to lose. I think Dr. Schmidt put it incredibly eloquent with his opening statement to win, we must all work together and we cannot take any tools off our tool belt to quickly power AI. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member and other committee members, thank you again for your diligent, you're bipartisan and your urgent focus on AI. I look forward to your questions.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Thank you. I appreciate your testimony. Mr. Wang. You're now recognized for five minutes for your opening statement.

Alexandr Wang:

Chairman Guthrie, Ranking Member Pallone and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to be here today to discuss the steps that must be taken to ensure US leadership in AI. My name is Alexander Wang. I'm the founder and CEO of Scale AI. Today's hearing is personal for me. I grew up in Los Alamos where my parents were physicists at the national lab, the birthplace of the atomic bomb. They taught me that America's leadership in science and technology is vital to our national security and global strength. At MIT, I learned that progress in AI depends on three key elements, data, compute and algorithms. While most of my classmates pursued expertise in compute and algorithms, few were focused on the data challenge that inspired me to start Scale. We deliver expert level data and offer technology solutions to leading AI labs, multinational enterprises, and the US government and our allies. At Scale, we keep humans at the center of everything we do because AI should always work for us, not the other way around.

Over the past decade, it's become clear that the United States faces intense global competition in determining how AI should evolve and who should lead. In 2018, the Chinese Communist Party's AI master plan started taking shape. They were already developing advanced AI capabilities and using that technology to surveil and suppress their people. Fast forward to today, their plan is more sophisticated and expansive. It includes four key areas of focus. First, the CCP is taking a whole of country approach having recently launched their AI Plus initiative. Second, the CCP is out investing us in data spending billions on AI ready data and unlocking vast public data sets to fuel AI systems. Third, they're finding ways to catch up on compute and building out their physical infrastructure. And lastly, they're developing leading AI models and exporting them to the world. But we are not here today to just talk about what China is doing, but to identify how the US can lead.

Given how close the competition is across all foundational elements, the policies this Congress promotes could determine the outcome. Global AI dominance is not about trying to level the playing field by mimicking China's authoritarian way of government and AI adoption. Instead, the United States must chart our own course one that is anchored in American values. This is vital to our long-term national security. This requires decisive action by the United States across four main themes, dominate, unleash, innovate, and promote. To dominate, we need to win on data. The US government is one of the largest producers of data in the world, but currently most of that data is unavailable To advance American AI leadership, there are three immediate actions that would move us forward towards data dominance. First, establish a national AI data reserve. This resource should serve as a centralized hub for the government's AI work, housing relevant government data, and allowing it to be easily shared between agencies and enabling widespread AI adoption.

Second, make all government data AI ready and stand up AI data infrastructure to enable scaled implementation. And third, Congress should invest in positioningongress should invest to position data dominance as a national priority. The next theme is unleash, meaning we must unleash AI technology and establish an an agentic government. An agentic government is one that uses AI under human supervision to enhance its operations. For example, federal agencies could leverage AI to streamline veteran healthcare paperwork, improve fraud detection at the IRS and boost efficiency and information sharing across agencies. This will improve the lives of public employees and the American people. Congress should require each agency to send up at least one flagship agentic government program. Next, we must maximize the ability of companies to innovate. I believe the right regulatory framework is one that allows for innovation while still creating proper guardrails. Congress should take three actions. First, confirm a use case, case-based regulatory framework and conduct an analysis to address regulatory gaps.

Second, establish one single federal AI governance standard to avoid patchwork legislation at the state level. And third, implement policies that enable American workers to become the AI workforce of the future. These policies would provide the skills necessary to train fine tune and evaluate AI systems. The final theme is promote meaning. We need to promote US technology globally. Countries around the world, what I call AI, geopolitical swing states will soon be forced to choose between Western or CCP control technology to help make sure they choose Western technology, Congress, and the administration should empower NIST to complete all relevant measurement science for AI and export it to the world through the global network of AI Safety Institutes. America led, the industrial revolution, the space race, the internet, and the internet age, AI is the next frontier. And with your assistance, I'm confident we'll lead. Again, thank you for the opportunity to be here today and I look forward to your questions.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Thank you. Thank you for your testimony as well. We'll now begin questioning and I'll recognize myself for five minutes for questions. So Mr. Dr. Schmidt, you talked about we need all available sources of energy and I think you said in library, congress and use AI to decide climate change. If we're going to try to build a broad coalition, we can't just go for energy without dealing with climate, and we can't just do climate and not have energy because the wind, solar and batteries are important. They won't supply the energy that we need. So what do you mean by all sources of energy and how do you think that we could side climate through AI?

Eric Schmidt:

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we discussed, the needs of our industry are so great that we cannot cut down any of the sources of energy right now. Why does this make sense? Knowing that climate change is real and knowing that it's a problem is that the intelligence revolution, the ability to do planning and discovery will allow us as Americans to develop new materials, new energy sources and so forth because of the AI data centers. So our core argument is invest in the way we can now because the future will be so much cleaner and so much more efficient as a result of these algorithms.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Thank you for that. And also you said in the Library of Congress that Europe has chosen not to grow. As we look to our competitor across the Pacific, I mentioned we look over to the Atlantic, what lessons learned do you think we need to look? As we say, a lot of times people look at Europe and want to see what they're doing and copy it. What should we not do that Europe has done?

Eric Schmidt:

Europe is a wonderful place to visit, but it's not growing. It has great human values, but it's not growing. As a result, everyone is unhappy. The standard of living between the United States and Europe is now diverged. The US lives much better than Europeans, which is annoying to my European friends. There are so many reasons why economic growth is important. Growth solves every problem in a democracy.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Well, thanks. So we were talking about that. So what kind of things have your decisions European leaders have made that we need to avoid?

Eric Schmidt:

Well, the primary issue is overregulation. We have a similar problem in America in that the overlapping set of local, federal, state rules, which were done with good intentions, have the property that they're slowing things down. Our competitor China is not a democracy, it's an autocracy, whatever you want to call it, and they just decide in this fight, as I said before, if they get there first, we will be very upset. All of us will be alive when this occurs, every one of you will see it. Imagine a situation where attacks that we cannot even imagine are unleashed by China in an adversarial thing. We have no concept of having a super intelligent opponent where we're not as intelligent as they are.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Good thing. So in your article I have here on the Atlantic or the Foreign Affairs, I'm sorry, the foreign affairs you wrote, essentially technological advances, the next five to 10 years will determine the country gains, the upper hand. I have a couple of minutes, but you got to explain militarily what this means and then what, because you wrote about what they can do militarily and then we need to act now.

Eric Schmidt:

So in the framing in China and Taiwan, which has discussed a great deal, everyone assumes that it's a battle of missiles and aircraft carriers. That's not correct. It will be a battle of swarms of drones. Those drones will be highly intelligent, highly planned, and they'll do maneuvers that no one can anticipate. We collectively are not ready for that. Imagine a situation where China has invented new algorithms for military attacks and defense that we cannot even conceive of. Remember, I'm discussing a world where humans have a partner that is smarter than the collection of those people. As I said, this will happen in our lifetimes, and it's important that we get there first. If you take a look at Ukraine, Russia, right now, you see the future of war. I'm assuming by the way that China would start by cyber attacks and so forth. There's evidence that these new systems will be able to come up with zero day exploits that we cannot foresee. A zero day exploit is something we've never seen before and we can't anticipate. There's lots of people who were worried that biological attacks can be done, and there's a report from the Emerging Bio Threats Commission this week with the great details, and there's a classified version that all of you should take a look at. There's plenty of evidence that these things are possible.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

So Mr. Wang, you see you're shaking your head. I only have about 30 seconds, but if you'd like to make a comment.

Alexandr Wang:

I agree with Dr. Schmidt that the potential implications on national security are incredible. As he mentioned, I think the place we're going to see this first is in cyber. I think we're going to see agentic cyber warfare in which we will see incredibly powerful AI and large scale data centers being utilized to hack into our systems. One of the things that we were discussing previously is how vulnerable our energy grid is.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

I'm at zero my time and we're going to try to stick to it. So I have to hold myself to that. So I appreciate that and we'll get more answers. I'll yield back and recognize the Ranking Member for five minutes.

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My questions are, Mr. Turk, you laid out how important it is that we keep our investment environments stable and attractive. So AI data infrastructure and energy companies can make the large investments in America needed to build AI tools in the US. But unfortunately, the Trump administration is doing the opposite. Trump has frozen investments in energy infrastructure, is attacking tax credits for energy generation and put in place tariffs that are destroying our economy. And don't just take my word for it, others are saying it too. So I'd ask unanimous to consent, Mr. Chairman to insert into the record an article from Politico entitled “Why Trump's Tariffs and Tax Policies Could Derail Efforts To Boost US Power Supply.” If I can give that to you.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Without objection.

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ):

Thank you. So Mr. Turk, can you talk about the harm that some of the Trump administration policies will have on our AI competitiveness? I have to tell you, I had also like to talk about the harm that he's doing to our major universities like Columbia, but that's for another committee, so I can't issue that today. But tell us about the harm that he's doing to our AI competitiveness, if you will.

The Honorable David Turk:

Well, thanks. Ranking Member Pallone. Let me start with the tariffs just because that's the news of the day and the week. I can't think honestly of a worse policy right now. If you want to bring on AI power quickly in our country, power for AI in our country, not only is it increasing costs across the board for the AI and the data centers itself, but for the power that goes into the data centers, but it's also injecting an immense amount of uncertainty. Folks who are planning data centers don't want uncertainty. They want stability of policy so they can plan going forward. So I think tariffs is absolutely the worst if you want to bring on additional data and additional energy for data centers. Secondly, the uncertainty of the incentives, the tax incentives, the grants and the loans, all that Congress has worked on in recent years repealing that and even the uncertainty of whether provisions are going to be repealed or not is also going to have a chilling effect on the investment for this power that I think all of our panels here agrees that we need to have. We also need to be honest with ourselves right now, the quickest power, the most affordable power to bring onto our grids, including for data centers is renewables and storage. 93% in 2025 will be renewables and storage. So we need to focus on a wide variety of energy sources. Completely agree with folks, but if we want to put urgency to it, the last thing we need to do is repeal these tax credits, grants, loans.

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ):

And then what about, I'm going to ask you to be quick if you will. I have a couple questions. What about the repeal of these programs like the Inflation Reduction Act that you mentioned that was put in place by Democrats and the tax credits? How's that going to make energy more expensive for American families in an area of increased energy demand, if you would?

The Honorable David Turk:

Well, we not only have additional energy demand, electricity demand for data centers, we have it for additional manufacturing electrification of buildings. So the demand for electricity is going up now when it's been flat for about 15, 20 years. That puts upward pressure on prices unless we have more supply coming on. And so to increase the cost of more supply, more of those electrons coming on makes it more expensive for AI data centers, but it makes it more expensive for households. I mentioned $220 per household on average being increased with just a couple of those tax provisions being revoked. If you get rid of more tax provisions, more grants, more loans, it's just going to increase that cost for everybody.

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ):

Lastly, do you agree that we need sensible guardrails to ensure the privacy and security of American's personal information is not a casualty of the rapid development of these AI algorithms and leaky AI tools, if you will?

The Honorable David Turk:

Well, I absolutely agree, and certainly private companies, including those represented here are going to be the ones who do this cutting edge AI and bringing all these tools to help humanity. But they have a profit motive. They're companies, they are trying to make a profit. They don't have expertise, they don't have nuclear weapons experts, they don't have biological weapons experts. We need democracy to step up. That's why I'm so happy to be in front of you all, a committee that's taking this seriously to have a hearing after hearing and really looking to have that kind of sensible, thoughtful regulation that balance that the chairman talks about.

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ):

Well, thank you. And I have to say again, I don't want to talk about Columbia universities today because it's not in our jurisdiction, but I have to say that cutting all these research money from major universities trying to get rid of today, he announced or yesterday that he was denying all the visas for foreign students at Rutgers University in my district. I mean, I see that we're not going to have, our universities aren't going to be able to do the work that's necessary to actually keep up competitively with China, and it's just really sad. But thank you. I yield back.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Thank the gentleman yields back and the Chair recognizes Mr. Latta for five minutes for questions.

Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH):

Well, thanks very much. Mr. Chairman. Thanks for witnesses for being here. This is extremely important, and just a few weeks ago, the head of NVIDIA said, I'll paraphrase, in order for us to keep the model responsive, we now have to compute 10 times faster. The amount of computation we have to do is a hundred times more easily. Another report had come out saying that in 2024 that said that China is looking at about a 90 or 94.5% gigawatts new power coming from code generation. And so what we're seeing is of across everything we've been talking about in this committee for quite a while, is that we're going to have to have more power. And Dr. Schmidt, I could start with you. You said something very interesting, something that's been brought up in this committee for a good number of years about light touch regulation, and I've heard it from the internet of things that you named what we touch in this committee, but could you just talk a little bit about, when you talk about the light touch, what we have to be doing to make sure we stay competitive?

Eric Schmidt:

The first thing the government needs to do is to make sure the government understands at the secret and top secret level what China is actually doing. So some variation of these safety institutes that is at the classified domain that allows our government to understand the details of what our opponents are doing is important with respect to the current US companies, all of them are very well aware of these issues and are working very hard to mitigate them. I'm part of a group that actually talks this informally every week to give you a sense of it, and the companies are trying very hard to keep the models safe. Having an agreement, for example, where the government is aware of what the companies are doing is probably a good thing. That's what I mean by light touch. This innovation, this arrival of this new alien, incredible intelligence will be done by the private sector. I want our US government to understand in detail its consequences and help it and help us be successful as a nation.

Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH):

Let me follow up because also you talked about we need energy in all forms. A couple of weeks ago in our subcommittee on energy, we had the RTOs and the ISOs here in this country, about seven different ones. They all said this exact same thing, we have to have more power and we shouldn't be taking generation offline. Do you agree with that statement from all those companies or all of the ISOs and RTOs?

Eric Schmidt:

I don't understand the structure of that part of the industry as well as you do, sir. From my perspective, the single most important thing to do is to have an all energy strategy. As honorable Turk said, it makes no sense to shut down the renewable stuff. We need more renewables, we also need more natural gas. We need more of everything. We're not going to be able to get the targets of gigawatts that we need without doing everything more. That includes permitting as I think we've all talked about.

Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH):

Thank you, Mr. Bhatia. You mentioned that we need reliable power and really we can't have disruption disruptions out there in it. And one of the issues again is we've got to make sure again, with what the RTOs and the ISOs are all saying is we've got to have this power. Do you see us meeting that powers need in the very near future? Because again, when you're talking about we have to have permitting reform, what's going on in this country?

Manish Bhatia:

I think that we are behind. I think that we need to think long-term, but act now for semiconductor manufacturing power is essential. It's one of the highest input values and it has incredible impact on the stability of the power. The reliability of the power has incredible impact on our ability to run efficient operations and to not have disturbances. I mentioned in my prepared testimony that even a fraction of a second of power droop, not even loss, not even a second fraction of a second of power droop can have tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars of impact in our fabs. So we absolutely need to make sure that we have more power that power transmission lines are built for the 21st century. And in fact, everywhere where we operate, our fabs power reliability is absolutely at the very top of our list and we do site selection.

Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH):

Well in my last 37 seconds, because you also mentioned we needed to cut through that red tape, how would you recommend to this committee that we cut through that red tape?

Manish Bhatia:

I think one of the ways is being sure that we reduce the duplicative regulations that are in place between federal and state. In one of our projects in New York right now, we have to do similar filings in both the federal and state level, even though the state level regulatory requirements match the federal ones. And so that just extends the timeline, creates more effort and creates delays. And I think the same thing can be true for many, many different energy projects and transmission projects around the country.

Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH):

Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time has expired right on the button, and I will also submit my questions to the witnesses.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Thank you. The gentleman yields back and the Chair recognizes the gentle lady from Colorado, Ms. DeGette for five minutes.

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO):

Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and my questions follow very closely on what Mr. Latta was just talking about. I want to thank you for having this hearing. We had a hearing in the Energy Subcommittee in 2023 about AI and energy, and many people hadn't even been thinking about the tremendous use of energy by AI up until that time. I think that this issue is a really ripe issue for bipartisan solutions. However, I'm concerned sometimes when we talk about cutting red tape or eliminating these proposals, sometimes that's a code word for partisanship. But as several people have pointed out, we've had bipartisan suggestions. Mr. Peters from this committee has worked on some with people from your side of the aisle. They've had 'em in the Senate. So if we try to, well, if the Republicans on this committee try to go this alone, then I think this is going to run into trouble.

But I think there's tremendous potential for us to work on this in a bipartisan way. I want to talk about an issue though that Mr. Pallone raised and also Mr. Turk raised, which is really a concerning issue of today, and that's these tariffs. All of the witnesses here today can stipulate that we're going to need a large increase in all types of energy to not just deal with current demands of consumers, but AI, does anybody disagree with that? Well, no one disagrees with it. So Mr. Turk, so if we're going to build more transmission infrastructure, we're going to have to have raw materials like steel and aluminum. Is that correct?

The Honorable David Turk:

Yes.

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO):

If these tariffs actually go into effect, which it seems like it might won't, those raw materials needed to add transmission capacity be more expensive. And Mr. Bhatia, just yesterday, in fact, Micron announced that they're going to have price increases on some products today starting today due to President Trump's tariffs. Isn't that correct?

Manish Bhatia:

Memory market is different.

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO):

I mean, didn't you announce yesterday that Micron is going to impose tariff related surcharges on some products from April 9th?

Manish Bhatia:

The tariffs are an evolving situation, and we are communicating with our customers.

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO):

Okay. Well, Mr. Chairman, I asked unanimous consent to put into the record a Reuters article which says, Micron to impose tariff related surcharge on some products from April 9th.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Without objection. So ordered.

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO):

Thank you. Now, Dr. Schmidt, you just talked about, and I agree with you that we need more energy in all forms, and also that's likely the way that this market is going to develop. Is that right?

Eric Schmidt:

Yes, correct.

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO):

So when people say, oh, we need to drill baby drill, we do need natural gas, but we also need to make sure that we can upgrade our grid to deal with the renewable energy, that is inevitably going to be a part of this process. Is that right?

Eric Schmidt:

Yes. Yes, ma'am.

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO):

Now, so Mr. Turk, I want to ask you, without guardrails, how is it that we're going to be able without guardrails that protect consumers? How is it we're going to be able to develop data centers for AI at the same time we can ensure average Americans can get the electricity that they need at decent prices?

The Honorable David Turk:

Well, I think we need to do two things at the same time. We need to bring on those electrons as quickly as we can, including to streamline permitting, but to do it in a bipartisan basis, bipartisan means durable. It means making sure things work actually in the real world. And then secondly, we do need to have the guardrails with all due respect to the other witnesses. We got phenomenal talent in the us. We're lucky to have that talent working on ai, but we also need to have the government step up. We need to have sensible, thoughtful guardrails to protect everyone's privacy. That's your jobs.

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO):

And if we don't have those guardrails, what's going to happen for energy prices for consumers?

The Honorable David Turk:

Well, energy prices will go through the roof and we'll lose trust for AI by the American people as well, which isn't going to help our competition with China either.

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO):

Thank you. I yield back.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

The general lady yields back. The chair recognizes Mr. Hudson for five minutes for questions.

Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC):

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding this very important hearing today. This topic is crucial, future generations and ensuring the resources for healthcare facilities, banks, universities, our national security, including our war fighter. Thank the witnesses for your very important testimony. Very informative. Bottom line is we must maintain our place as a global leader on AI. I think we can all agree on that. North Carolina, where I live is a state that leads in innovation and that includes in AI. There's no doubt we'll continue to incorporate AI in many of our industries, but we must ensure we have the resources necessary to advance and sustain AI use. I represent Fort Bragg. We call it the epicenter of the universe, only the Airborne and Special Forces and Fort Bragg. We use AI. AI benefits the war fighter by anticipating what's next, adjusting the situations and connecting our soldiers.

It's absolutely critical to our national security that we stay ahead of our near-peer adversaries, particularly China, so that we maintain our superior advantage. I never want my guys and gals in a fair fight. I want us to be the leader and certainly don't want us to face a near-peer adversary that has a superior AI technology. I've also seen threats to our energy sources, whether it's the rolling brownouts we saw in California, but also including when two substations in my district were attacked in my home county, causing a multi-day power loss. Nearly 4,000 people without power for almost a week. Hospitals, face blackouts, schools and businesses closed restaurants and grocery stores lost their inventory. Stoplights were dark cell signals went down. Even gas stations had to close. One of my constituents lost her life disruptions to our injury supplier. Dangerous. And an attack like this has big implications on our future AI capabilities. The threat only grows as AI is further incorporated in our everyday lives. I'll start with Mr. Wang, but if anyone else wants to jump in, can you please share from your opinion how an unreliable or a non resilient grid when impact investing, investment planning and existing commercial activities?

Alexandr Wang:

First of all, I want to just echo many of your statements. They're spot on. First of all, we need advanced AI for national security. We need our Department of defense, our war fighter, to have advanced AI capabilities. That is absolutely critical for this next phase, and that is dependent on energy. As we've discussed here over the course of today, one of the greatest risks, if you think about the training of these large scale AI systems, it requires a continuous source of power to be able to both train advanced AI systems and keep them running. If we have an unreliable energy grid in any sort of competitive or conflict scenario, if the adversaries have the ability to take down our grid through cyber attacks or other forms of attacks, then that greatly impacts our ability to be competitive or to be able to fight in that battle. So it is absolutely critical. We have reliable energy grid. It's important that we secure this energy grid. It's important that we're able to protect against cyber attacks and other forms of attacks, and we have consistent power.

Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC):

Does anybody else want to weigh in, Mr. Bhatia?

Manish Bhatia:

I think that the President, as well as Congress, is behind strong growth in manufacturing across many different sectors, including semiconductors and energy has always been an advantage for this country due to abundant natural resources. And we've invested in all different technologies over time, and that has just stalled over the last 10, 15 years as some of the other panelists noted. And so absolutely believe that investing in energy is going to help to fuel this manufacturing renaissance and in particular, the semiconductor renaissance that we all know is so important to winning in AI. Just to collapse some of the words of Mr. Wang on the panel here, it's about data and data needs memory chips, and it needs the most advanced memory chips in order to be able to create all of the insights that are valuable in whatever circumstance or application that we see.

Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC):

Well, thank you for your answers, Mr Turk.

The Honorable David Turk:

Congressman. If I could just say a word on grid, and I'm just so pleased you mentioned the grid. It's just such a fundamental backbone of our infrastructure for military bases, but for everybody else in industry. This is where I think it's so important to have all the tools in the tool belt you all provided through the bipartisan infrastructure legislation, 10.5 billion to improve our grid through a program called the Grip Program. We have 23 billion in our loan program right now with a whole bunch more in the pipeline to help utilities to strengthen the grid going forward. That's what I'm talking about, keeping all these tools in the tool belt.

Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC):

Appreciate that Mr. Chairman. My time has expired, so I'll yield back, but thank you to the witnesses for those answers.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Ms. Schakowsky for five minutes for questions.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL):

Okay. I have questions for you. Some go way back. We're talking about AI today, but I have to tell you that I and Gus Bilirakis on the Republican side have been working on the issue of privacy for a very, very long time and even more before that with all kinds of tech interests, but we have never done anything to reign in big tech, nothing whatsoever. So we see families that have to give all kinds of information, which they do all kinds of, I think, risks that go on. So of course, we're talking about AI, but in the meantime, we have seen tech leaders apologize to consumers. Oh, we didn't mean to put children at risk. We didn't mean to do this or that, and yet we have done nothing at all. So what it seems to me is now we're talking about AI and you talk about risk. You use that word risk. So do we have to go back further or if you want to just talk about risk with AI, what exactly are we talking about? You mentioned that in your written statement, but I'd like to know who, and we can start with how do we address the issue of risk, but who should be addressing the issue of risk?

The Honorable David Turk:

Well, thank you Congresswoman for that question, and thank you for your focus on these issues for years and years. Your leadership has just been tremendous. I completely agree with something Dr. Schmidt said at the beginning in his opening statement about AI being under hyped. If anything, this is an incredibly powerful technology. What that means to me is, and I've had the chance to work with a lot of our experts in the government, and we need to make sure that we keep those experts in the government. We need more AI experts in the government not letting AI experts leave, which gives me concern with some of the firings and some of the other things that this administration, the Trump administration's doing. But powerful technologies can not only be used for good, powerful technologies, especially in terrorist hands and rogue states, hands and other hands. Once you get these models out there, it's incredibly difficult to bring them back in.

So I'll give you a specific example of a risk, and I know this is an unclassified setting, so I'll just talk a bit in generalities. As smart as the folks are who work in Scale AI and OpenAI and Google and Meta and these other big tech companies, they're not nuclear weapons experts, nor should they be. I'm not sure why he'd be a nuclear weapons expert and Mr. Wang mentioned his parents working at Los Alamos, which is just a phenomenal lab for us in our country. We need to make sure that before a model goes out there in the public, that there's some red teaming. There's some vetting by nuclear weapons experts to know what to look for to make sure that terrorists can't take these models and help them develop nuclear weapons or biological weapons or chemical weapons. That's where I think their, just as you suggest it's who and how the private sector will need to leave.

They have an incentive to make sure that their models are safe, but they don't have all the expertise they need to red team and make sure that those models are safe. I would prefer that not to just be a voluntary kind of understanding. I think it should be a requirement that before models come out, there needs to be some vetting now that has to be done efficiently. It has to have the right balance that the chairman's talking about to make sure that the broad expertise that we have, the nuclear weapons experts, the chem weapons experts are poking and prodding and making sure that these models aren't going to cause us harm. So that's one particular example. The other one that you mentioned, which I think is incredibly important as well, is privacy and making sure that information is not sucked up inappropriately to go into these AI models in the first place and that these models aren't going to infringe on the privacy. I absolutely think consumers, citizens, Americans should control their information and we should have guardrails. We should have regulations in place to ensure that that's the case. Again, this should be thoughtful, this should be efficient, this should be in a way that allows our companies to push the boundaries. I completely agree with everyone who's spoken that we need to win this AI race, but we need to do this thoughtfully and make sure that the democracy, the people's representatives have some say here too.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL):

So, as part of the who, you're saying that the Congress of the United States should play a role.

The Honorable David Turk:

Absolutely. That's why I'm so pleased that this committee's having multiple hearings, not just one off.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL):

Thank you. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it. I yield back.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Thank you. The gentle lady yields back. The chair recognizes Mr. Bilirakis for five minutes.

Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. Thanks for holding the hearing. I thank the presenters, Mr. Wang to win the race against China. American AI companies need to succeed at home and abroad. However, we've seen our largest foreign trade partners, especially the EU, enact sweeping new AI data regulations that could be used to target US companies. How can we address new and emerging digital trade barriers to ensure American AI companies can outcompete their Chinese competitors again on an even playing field?

Alexandr Wang:

Thank you for the question. It is certainly true that China in particular and the Chinese Communist Party has a strategy to win on data. This includes some of the things that you mentioned around being more loose around data privacy both domestically and internationally, as well as explicit programs that they have within their country to create tax incentives, vouchers, and other forms of large scale government programs to win on data. That's why I actually think it's critical in the United States that we focus on exporting our technology globally as well as exporting our standards globally. So one of the avenues that we have as a country to be able to do this is through NIST.

As the United States, we have an opportunity to really define what are the standards for AI that will be adopted globally and other countries are listening, and through the global network of AI safety institutes, there is a global coalition of countries who are looking to us to help define what are the standards for safety and other provisions that we will all collectively utilize to define how we govern AI in the future. So we have a golden opportunity as a country to help set the global AI standards and we need to take that and be very thoughtful about what we present.

Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL):

Thank you, Dr. Schmidt. We've seen Chinese AI companies like DeepSeek and Alibaba debut powerful AI models in the past two months. Many are rightfully focused on these models capabilities, but I'm also concerned about how they were trained potentially on Americans personal data and by misusing access to American AI services, we should also be cautious about how Chinese AI will be used by American consumers and in potentially sensitive areas of the US economy such as healthcare. And I'm very interested in that we should act now before China has a foothold on these emerging markets and controls AI data outputs to Americans queries. What steps can we take to address these risks to American consumers and businesses? And at first I want to talk to Dr if Dr. Schmidt can answer, and then if anyone else wants to chime in and I have some time, please don't hesitate.

Eric Schmidt:

Not only is your question great, it's worse than you said. Sorry. The Chinese models are released in open source, which means that you can see how they work and they're easily spread and they're free. It's highly likely that the US companies will be, by the time we're done, pretty well regulated by you all because of the importance of what they're doing. This is my personal opinion. I'm not calling for it, but I think that's what's going to happen. It's very hard to regulate the open source movement coming out of China. We need to make sure we deal with that. The industry is struggling with your question because we've not figured out a way to deal with what is called distillation. In distillations where you take one model and you ask it questions and you get the answers. There's lots of evidence that the Chinese did exactly what you said in your question using this distillation mechanism, so we don't really know.

My own view is that the best answer is more offense, not more defense, and simply invest, invest, invest to stay ahead in order to invest. As I mentioned in my opening statement, we need high skills immigration of key people because these things are essentially math problems. We need all the energy that we discussed. I think the American innovation system, which is the combination of the government, the venture capital industry, the private sector, universities, is phenomenal. It's important we not in any way slow down the universities and AI research, we can win this. It has to be an all-country effort. My personal view is it's a national security issue for America against China.

Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL):

Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. I don't have any more time left, so I'll yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Thank you. The chair recognizes Ms. Matsui for five minutes for questions.

Rep. Doris Matsui (D-CA):

Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman. I want to thank all the witnesses for being here today. This is a critical, important issue for the future of America and really for the future of humanity at large. Now, as co-author of the original CHIPS Act, I know how critical this policy is to strengthen our national security and technological leadership. The Chips and Science Act is working as intended. Leveraging is $50 billion of government funding to spur a ninefold investment of $450 billion from the semiconductor industry. Yet President Trump threatened to abandon this once in a generation effort to bring advanced semiconductor manufacturing back to America, and his tariffs are driving up costs to what we need to be competitive in AI, including aluminum, steel, semiconductors and electronics. This administration's chaos and uncertainty will harm our AI leadership. Dr. Schmidt and Dr. Bhatia, how would dismantling or delaying these CHIPS and Science Act programs impact America's global competitiveness, especially in AI innovation?

Manish Bhatia:

Thank you Congresswoman Matsui for your support of the CHIPS Act in our industry over your entire career. We are the only US memory company and our investments are bring tremendous value across leading-edge memory solutions as well as across other segments like the automotive industry, aerospace, and defense. So we believe our investments and our more than a hundred billion dollars plan over the next 20 years will bring tremendous value and we're actually encouraged by the executive order to create an accelerator program for large-scale projects through the chips office, through the Department of Commerce to be able to ensure that our projects.

Rep. Doris Matsui (D-CA):

So you don't want any slowing down, right? No pausing.

Manish Bhatia:

That's right. That's right. I think the accelerator's goal is to be able to make sure that the projects can be successful.

Rep. Doris Matsui (D-CA):

Dr. Schmidt?

Eric Schmidt:

A number of us were very strong supporters of your legislation for the following reason, 25 years ago, we made a mistake as a country and we got out of this business. It costs money to get back into it. It costs money to build the factories, to train the people and so forth. 10 billion of the 50 billion is in new R and D. New kinds of packaging, which will give America possibility of leading globally in semiconductors. The other 40 is to allow us to have domestic production. Why do we need domestic production? Think national security. Just think about it. It's worth it to our nation to have a supply chain of critical intelligence materials that is literally the things that do the thinking under your control, Congresswoman, thank you.

Rep. Doris Matsui (D-CA):

Okay, and Dr. Schmidt, I read your testimony. I was very impressed with it, particularly in the part about our innovation power, the potent collaboration between government, private industry and academia. The government really providing the strategic direction and the private sector driving innovation and academia, which fills a pipeline of foundational research and talent. I was wondering, I think it's great to have this collaboration, but I'm wondering because the Trump administration claims are committed to American dominance yet time and again, their actions show the opposite. We should be training and recruiting talent to shape our AI leadership. Instead, more than 75% of US researchers surveyed considering leaving our country because of the chaos of the Trump administration. President Trump is firing experts in our agency, waging and war against science and destroying our public research funding system. Mr. Turk, this dismantling of public research and reductions in the federal workforce consistent with, is it consistent with strengthening US leadership on AI and other emerging technologies?

The Honorable David Turk:

I think it's absolutely inconsistent. I think this is a huge threat going on right now. Hollowing out the expertise in our national government, and I certainly got a chance to work with phenomenal experts, civil servants in our Department of Energy. We built that institution up for years and years, that kind of talent at our national labs and to be haphazardly and chaotically firing people, losing that talent at the exact time that we need it given the global competition we've got in AI and all these other critical technology areas. So I think it's exactly the wrong approach.

Rep. Doris Matsui (D-CA):

Okay. There are other energy technologies that Republicans have historically supported the bipartisan infrastructure law. We created the offers of clean energy demonstrations to help develop advanced nuclear hydrogen carbon capture and long duration energy storage. Mr. Turk, what's happening to the office of Clean Energy demonstrations under President Trump?

The Honorable David Turk:

It is one of the offices that's been decimated the worst, and you just mentioned the incredibly important areas that they're working on. Funding that's been provided on a bipartisan basis from Congress to see handling is just a draft. We have to move on.

Rep. Doris Matsui (D-CA):

My time has ended, I have other questions. I'll submit for the record.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Thank you. Thank the gentle lady yields back. The Chair recognizes Mr. Palmer for five minutes for questions.

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Schmidt, I read your book and I have one of my favorite quotes is from Henry Kissinger. He said The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously. I say it another way. Nothing brings clarity and focus quite so well as the absence of alternatives. My concern is that we're in an arms race with China for artificial intelligence and quantum computing, and that if China wins that race, they will not be a superpower. They will be the superpower. I also continue to point out in this committee that there's not a single major refinery for rare earth elements in the Western hemisphere. There's only nine in the world. Eight are in China, the other one's in Malaysia. And I just want to ask you, do you think this ought to be one of those moments of clarity that focuses Congress on meeting these demands, these needs?

Eric Schmidt:

Thank you and I do. If I told you with certainty that in five years China will be able to mount cyber attacks against American infrastructure that we have no defense of, would you act now?

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL):

Yes, absolutely.

Eric Schmidt:

If I told you that China was building an architecture for national security that was autonomous, robotic, attributable, et cetera, would you act now? Yes, you would. I'm telling you those now.

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL):

So if we don't act on the mining processing, refining of rare earth elements, immediately we could find ourselves in the very position you just described.

Eric Schmidt:

That's correct. We want full control of our own supply chain.

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL):

Absolutely.

Eric Schmidt:

Energy chips, the infrastructure that we need. It's an issue of national security for America.

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL):

Mr. Wang, in order to meet the demands that we have for power generation, what power generation capacity do we need to have to achieve dominance in AI and quantum computing? Do you have any idea of what that would be?

Alexandr Wang:

Well, as was mentioned earlier, the scale of data centers that are being built require similar amounts of power as entire cities in the United States

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL):

Well, Dr. Schmidt, you probably don't remember this at the dinner, at the Library of Congress, you and I had a brief discussion. One of the things that I continue to point out in this committee and other places is that there's a hundred, 200 hydrocarbon power generation facilities that have been shuttered, dismantled. We know that we have these enormous power demands. I know there's a move now to go back to opening these back up on natural gas and coal, but what do you think about using small modular reactors to locate 'em on these facilities to meet? It is the quickest way I think to meet these power demands and the good part of this is with all due respect to my democratic colleagues, we're not going to do it with renewables because we just don't have the time to build out everything you have to build out, including the transmission lines. Those transmission lines still exist at these shuttered power plants. We could literally, we could open 'em with coal or natural gas, but I think we ought to be thinking about small modular reactors that can plug into the existing transmission lines. How would you respond to that?

Eric Schmidt:

One of my personal frustrations is the regulatory structure around nuclear and SMRs SMRs are the right answer. So your instincts are exactly correct. Furthermore, they can be built in volume. How many SMRs are in use in America today? Zero.

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL):

Zero.

Eric Schmidt:

How many? What is the most promising one? An initiative in Canada.

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL):

I'm glad you brought that up because they just licensed it what? Two days ago or a week ago.

Eric Schmidt:

And the typical supply, the fast approval time is considered to be 12 years. That defies logic. We need a new program around much faster permitting for safer and safer fission and fusion nuclear SMRs are the correct path. One of the issues that's sorry for the details is 30 years ago, 40 years ago when the standard for permitting and nuclear was set at a threshold below natural radiation, Alex can talk about this with great detail more than I can. At the end of the day, it was set too hard. It was a mistake. It needs to be fixed.

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL):

Well, the GE Hitachi, and I'm taking sides for any brand, could be built in about three years. But you made another point there that I think is very important for this committee and that is the economy of scale. If we were committed to building these out in scale, so much of it can be done in factories. So much of the testing can be done in factory and then on site. I think it is extremely important that this government move towards small modular reactors to meet the power demands that we have to have to even be competitive with China and the AI space. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Gentleman yields back to the chair, recognizing Ms. Castor for five minutes for questions.

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL):

Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a very important topic and we should be focused on bipartisan solutions to advance American innovation. The problem is there are so many new roadblocks right now, and President Trump has turned himself into the anti-innovation President. He has outright killed large new energy resources that were in line to come onto the grid. He's imposed these new import taxes and tariffs on everything we need to compete on AI, aluminum, steel, semiconductors, electronics. He's threatening to halt our investment in semiconductors in America. He has taken a hatchet to the academic and scientific workforce. This is all a gift to China at exactly the wrong time, but let's focus in on the challenges and the opportunities for energy and AI. Secretary Turk, it's good to see you. One of the challenges is the enormous need for new energy capacity, but I'm very concerned for what this means for everyday Americans and their electric bills there. Mr. Chairman, I'm going to offer ask unanimous consent to submit for the record in a new study from the Environmental and Energy Law Program out of Harvard Law School where they highlight, they say they're skeptical of utility claims, that data center energy costs are isolated from other consumers, bills rate structures as well as secret contracts. Could be transferring big tech's energy costs to the public.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

I got no objections.

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL):

Thank you. How do we balance these needs?

The Honorable David Turk:

So I think we have to, as I said in my opening statement, bring power on the grid, could be behind the meter as well to power data centers, to power AI, cutting edge models. We also need to make sure we have downward pressure on prices. I don't know of any elected official anywhere in our country who shouldn't have affordability and the cost to consumers as job one and everything seen through that lens as you suggest, it doesn't seem like that's what our President right now has in mind. So even contemplating repealing the tax credits that puts downward pressure on prices across the board. Technology neutral, right? Any technology can qualify for those tax credits if it meets certain thresholds. Getting rid of those is exactly the wrong thing to do right now. And I mentioned the analysis that's been done. A number of groups have done really good cutting edge analysis, $220 more annually each and every year for an average household. Now that goes up in some states to $400 more a year. If you happen to represent Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, New York, Iowa and Kansas watch out. It's $400 more per year just to repeal two of the tax credits, let alone the full panoply of what's been done.

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL):

Yeah, thanks. So one of the opportunities, however, is to work together on a much more efficient and modern electric grid across country. It's kind of outdated the way everything is structured and right now, that's why yesterday I introduced my Advancing Grid Enhancing Technologies Act with Senators Welch and King, which will implement shared savings incentives that promote the deployment of grid enhancing technologies. That is the cheapest way to supercharge our grid. We've got to optimize the existing grid infrastructure to bring energy projects online more quickly and save consumers billions of dollars. Do you see hope here with modernization of the grid and Getz?

The Honorable David Turk:

Well, thank you for your leadership and thank you for focusing on Getz grid enhancing technologies. We've got such a range of technologies. Some we still need to reduce costs, but some like Getz and Reconductoring, makes sense. We just don't have a utility industry now in the incentives for those technologies to be utilized at scale to allow us to get more out of our existing grid. We of course need to build new transmission as well in our country to make sure that we're prepared for what we need in the future. So I'm really pleased and thankful for your leadership in that area. I'm also firmly one and I agree with Dr. Schmidt and others. Congressman Palmer was just talking about small modular reactors. I think it's small modular reactors. I think we should be investing now in fusion, so we have that as a solution. Enhanced geothermal is such a phenomenal resource and our country taking advantage of the drilling expertise in the workers to drill 24/7 clean power, including for data centers. We should be investing even more now to try to bring that technology online very quickly.

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL):

Thank you. I yield back my time.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Thank you. The gentle lady yields back. The Chair recognizes Dr. Dunn from Florida for five minutes.

Rep. Neil Dunn (R-FL):

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. So exciting topic. From tech startups to energy grid operators, internet service providers, everybody is working to develop these new AI technologies and America has always been at the forefront of technological innovation, but with AI, we're just not. We're not untouchable. We have competition. We're in a race with China to lead in this field and it's promising to have two major American companies sitting before us today, Scale AI and Micron who are leading the way. This global AI boom has prompted widespread industry adoption across all kinds of sectors. Healthcare is one of keen interests to me, but also finance, telecom, whether. This morning I met with NOAA. They're excited. However, this exponential growth of demand brings it with some substantial energy requirements and as AI models grow in size complexity, so does the infrastructure required to train and operate them.

For instance, training large language models can take weeks of processing and high powered GPUs and the energy consumption can be staggering. At the same time, our telecoms infrastructure has to keep up with AI's growing demands. High capacity networks are essential to ensure fast data transfers and these realtime AI applications such as autonomous driving, telemedicine, smart cities and whatnot. As AI use grows, both the energy conception telecoms capacity required will grow commensurately with it and at the same time, the Chinese Communist Party is moving fast and hard with zero regulations and zero ethical restraints. So we have our work cut out for us. I also sit on the China Select China committee and the NATO parliament and I had a chance to discuss these issues with our European counterparts, and I met with the member of the European Parliament who led the current EU privacy bill and she cautioned me, whatever you do in Congress, don't do that. Don't do what we did. Don't do what we did. That was her words kind of right from the horse's mouth, if you will. The expert witnesses here, I think understand today that the EU bill has indeed restricted artificial intelligence development in Europe. With that Mr. Schmidt, as these AI tools develop their utility to each of us will be proportionate to our ability to access 'em. With that in mind, are we moving quickly enough to enable the deployment of broadband connectivity and commercial access to spectrum? Mr. Schmidt?

Eric Schmidt:

On the spectrum side, we need another round of a spectrum analysis and a new way in which the unused spectrum is allocated. I happen to believe in a situation where companies are able to buy the spectrum but they have to build it out or they're given the spectrum, they have to build it out. I don't want people sitting on spectrum and not making it use. We need that bandwidth. However you all arrange that, it'll be fine with us, I think.

Rep. Neil Dunn (R-FL):

Well, it's trickier than you think, but thank you for that. I'm pleased where our members of that committee are sitting here with us today. Mr. Wang. It's a good see you again here in Washington and you're becoming a regular up here. I fear for your soul today kind of get AI research is dominated by industry, partially due to the very high costs of computing needed to train these advanced models. Given the fast pace of the progress, how can we ensure our government or our pilot programs keep up with the rapidly evolving industry's needs and standards?

Alexandr Wang:

I think the most useful framework here is to just think about what are the wrong ingredients for these AI models. So it boils down to three major elements. Computational power, which requires a lot of energy as we've discussed a lot today. Algorithms, the sort of instructions for the models and that requires incredible talent to devise new algorithms and then data. And oftentimes we really, and really these AI models and progress and AI models boils down to progress in every one of these three underlying components. Oftentimes, we don't consider enough our relative position on data with respect to the Chinese Communist Party. They have had a decade long strategy to be dominant in data, to win on data. They have large scale government programs. They've built their entire system and their entire country, their sort of civil military fusion system to be dominant on data. And we need to begin thinking as strategically on this front as well. We need a program and we need thought around how we achieve data dominance as a country, how we utilize all of the incredible data that we have as a country to get out ahead and our government is one of the largest producers of data and we need to leverage this advantage.

Rep. Neil Dunn (R-FL):

And do you think having a privacy law would help that? I mean a standardized privacy rule for the country.

Alexandr Wang:

I definitely want to prevent the case where we have a patchwork of privacy laws across every state in the country.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

I'm sorry you're out of time. Thank you. Mr, Tonko is now recognized for five minutes.

Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY):

Thank you Mr. Chair. Let me begin by acknowledging that just about every witness who has testified at the Energy Subcommittee this year, whether by invitation of Republican or Democrat, has agreed that we must make it easier to build transmission infrastructure to meet our nation's growing energy demands and to be the global leader in AI. Today's witnesses are no exception, so I really hope this is an issue that the committee can get serious about. Dr. Schmidt, your testimony mentioned building more transmission, but you also called out the need to embrace small grid capabilities and grid enhancing technologies. Why is it important to maximize our existing electricity systems efficiency and performance while we also work to build new infrastructure?

Eric Schmidt:

One of the ways to think about the energy problem is you're building things that last 40 years and that you're in a constant process of renewing things that were built 40 years ago. And in that sense, we need an integrated plan to upgrade everything. I like what the Honorable Turk said that you need all of it. My list was fusion, fission, especially SMRs in enhanced geothermal, natural gas, renewable wind, and solar. We need all of it. In order to do that, the grid has to be more dynamic. You want to have the source of power be as close as possible to the consumer. The ideal scenario is that you put your power plant next to your data center. The data centers need five gigawatts. They're huge, right? You need five gigawatts of power, which is also huge. We can't do that. Therefore, we need to have the transmission to get them from one to the other.

Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY):

Thank you, I appreciate that. And Mr. Turk, your thoughts on this, if we can make some existing loads more flexible to demand response programs or deploy grid enhancing technologies to get more out of our existing infrastructure. Are these important tools to create the energy system conditions needed to win the race for global AI leadership?

The Honorable David Turk:

Well, I think there are absolutely indispensable and there are no regrets as well. Just as Dr. Schmidt was talking about, why wouldn't we take advantage, and I know you've been a leader on this for years in the Congress, why wouldn't we take advantage of that infrastructure that we built? Infrastructure is one those things, it's going to be around 40 years or even more. Let's get the most out of it. And we do have technologies these days gets technologies reconductoring using AI, using machine learning to help the grids balance loads a lot quicker. We started a program at the Department of Energy to use AI for permitting to make sure that we could do more permitting, including on transmission, to build out our transmission system even more quickly than we have been doing. It's a big challenge, but we got to use all the tools.

Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY):

Thank you both of you, gentlemen and Mr. Bhatia, I want to first and foremost welcome you to upstate New York. I also want to thank you and recognize the important commitments that Micron has made to upstate New York today. We're talking a lot about how we can build and operate our energy system to meet AI's needs, but we rarely talk about how AI and its enabling technologies can be developed to better fit within the reasonably foreseeable constraints of our system. And that is why it is critically important that we continue to invest in research. So Mr. Bhatia, your testimony mentioned that Micron is developing chips with much more improved energy efficiency. Can you discuss why this is a priority for Micron and how important CHIPS energy efficiency is to reduce the overall energy demands of these data centers?

Manish Bhatia:

Certainly. Thank you for your comments, Congressman, and I really believe the semiconductor industry and memory chips are part of the solution. The brilliance of Moore's Law, which is the governing law for the industry over the, since its inception 50 plus years ago, is that with every generation of technology that we introduce every 18 to 24 months, we are taking the same operation and doing it with higher performance, lower power, and less resources utilized to build that device, whether in our case, memory cells. And so that scaling path by itself is part of the solution to being able to make all these tremendous AI innovations, these data-driven AI innovations come to life using lower and lower power as we progress through time. And Micron has actually been very focused on leadership in that way. For the last four DRAM generations, Micron has been first to market by several quarters ahead of our Asian competitors, and that allows us to build chips that are lower power than those competitors. So for example, I mentioned in my prepared remarks that every one Nvidia GPU has 96 high bandwidth memory chips integrated with it. Our high bandwidth memory chips are 30% lower power, 30% lower power than our competitors chips that go into those similar systems. So absolutely critical for us and we look for all avenues to be able to continue to reduce power as we scale down the trajectory and improve the efficiency of our chips, including partnering with national labs.

Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY):

My time's expired. Thank you. Well, thank you very much Mr. Chair. Thank you for the comments.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Thank you. And the Chair recognizes Dr. Joyce for five minutes.

Rep. John Joyce (R-PA):

First, I want to thank Chairman Guthrie for holding this critical hearing on the future of artificial intelligence. AI is the defining technology of the next several decades. It will have a revolutionary effect on all aspects of our lives. It'll be integral in everything from the high level data analysis to the use of a search engine. In industries as diverse as energy production and healthcare, AI is already making significant inroads. As a doctor, we see AI integrated into innovative medical devices helping to translate the information collected by the device into clinical guidance. In medical practices, AI can help streamline the administrative tasks, allowing doctors to ultimately spend more time with their patients. This is just the beginning of the capabilities that AI will give us, and it is why it is critical that the US leads the way in the development and the deployment of this technology.

Just like the space race during the Cold War, however, our geopolitical rival is striving to catch up and overtake America so that they can dominate this new sector. Make no mistake, China is desperate to beat us in the field of AI. It is a national imperative that we do not allow this to happen. America and the free world can't afford to let the Chinese Communist Party win the race with AI. Fortunately, we have an advantage and that advantage is the vast energy resources, the resources that are under the feet of my constituents. In Pennsylvania, energy is now the limiting factor for building the data centers that AI uses, which is why to win the race for AI, we need to unleash American energy. We've already begun to see the new project development with data center agreements between AWS and Talen energy at the Susquehanna nuclear generation facility and the reopening of Three Mile Island thanks to the power purchase agreement between Constellation Energy and Microsoft.

Another project in Indiana, Pennsylvania, was the announcement to repurpose the retired coal powered Homer City generating station. This new facility powered by Pennsylvania's abundant natural gas reserves will be one of the largest power generating sites in the entire country. Capable of generating up to a staggering four and a half gigawatts of electricity to power data centers and AI facilities on the site attracting billions of dollars in investment to our region. These projects show that America's ability to lead the world in AI is directly tied to our nation's energy production. We must continue to use our energy advantage in this global competition. Dr. Schmidt, in earlier public statements you had supported moving away from fossil fuel base load power. Today, it seems that you have a different view on the energy industry. Can you please explain why your views have evolved and what that connects with your views on AI development?

Eric Schmidt:

Let me also mention that 35 to 40 years ago, Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh invented a great deal of the world that we're talking. So thank you to your state and to what they were able to do. We need all sources of power to accelerate because we don't have a choice. If you just assume that you can get there with baseload power, with renewables, you can get there maybe 25, 30%. We can debate it. You can't solve the whole problem as we're laying out without an all power solution, and that's why I'm taking the position that I have today.

Rep. John Joyce (R-PA):

Well, you mentioned renewables, but renewables do not provide that base load power that is so necessary in the data centers, correct?

Eric Schmidt:

Not correct. I'm sorry sir. Renewables plus batteries are now roughly competitive with the price of natural gas, partly because the natural gas demand has gone so much. And so again, from my perspective, the answer is yes to all let the market sort it out, let everybody build everything. We need it all now.

Rep. John Joyce (R-PA):

And I think ultimately we need the nuclear and the natural gas to be able to allow those data centers to continue to develop and continue to grow.

Eric Schmidt:

And sir, may I just emphasize the importance of baseload power, which I think is what you're getting at. We need continuous. If you listen to Micron, these guys are superhuman. What they've done in America against the Chinese and the other Asian manufacturers is enormous. They need that base load power. That's why your premise is correct.

Rep. John Joyce (R-PA):

Thank you very much. I think we can all agree that the base load power is truly the key to moving forward with the development of AI in the United States. Mr. Wang, as I mentioned earlier, there are two data center projects in Pennsylvania that are co-locating with nuclear power.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

I'm sorry, we're beyond time. Sorry.

Rep. John Joyce (R-PA):

I thank you again, Chairman Guthrie for holding this important hearing today.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Thank you. The vice chair of the committee yield's back and the chair recognizes Ms. Kelly for five minutes for questions.

Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL):

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As my colleagues have noted, this hearing comes at a pivotal time. The Trump administration led by Elon Musk and DOGE are working to rescind key investments made under the Inflation Reduction Act, which you've heard that have spurred unprecedented growth in clean energy generation while expanding domestic manufacturing opportunities. These investments have made a major difference in my district, which is urban, suburban, and rural. I go from the city of Chicago downstate where I have 4,500 farms. Mr. Turk, given the expected growth in demand and significant investments that would be made to our grids infrastructure, can you discuss the different responsibilities between states and federal governments and regulating how these improvements will be paid for?

The Honorable David Turk:

Yeah, absolutely. Luckily, we've got policies in place, tax incentives in place, grants in place, loans in place to make it more affordable for us in our country to build the kind of power that we need, not just for data centers, but for the rest of our economy as well. Repealing those tax credits, I have hope I've been incredibly clear here at this hearing. Repealing those tax credits, those grants, those loans, we'll raise the price, we'll raise the costs and we'll delay how quickly we can bring electrons onto our grid. So I think it's incredibly important for the federal government to play a strong role. Luckily, we've got those incentives in place. It's just a question of whether we take those off the table, take those tools off the table, and I just couldn't agree with you more strongly. We need those tools on the table.

Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL):

Well, thank you. I hope everyone's listening. Alongside the provisions in the IRA, it's imperative, we continue working to invest in our nation's critical supply chains, supporting our capacity to develop and produce a high tech revolutions essential for prosperity in this modern economy, which is why I was proud to join my colleague Rep. Dingell in leading the Democratic Supply Chains Act. Last Congress vital provisions from this package were included in the promoting Resilience Supply Chains Act, which was passed by this committee yesterday. Efforts like these not unpredictable, unlawful funding cuts and across the board, tariffs on our allies will help the US lead the way on AI while ensuring innovation continues to thrive in communities like mine. Mr. Turk, during your time as Deputy Secretary, a rapid growth of AI transform future planning and considerations around grid reliability and resilience.

The Honorable David Turk:

So AI is an incredibly powerful technology. It can help on the grids. The grids are becoming increasingly complicated. We've got a complicated patchwork in our country. We need to not only have the local grids and the regions work, but we need interregional communication, interregional flows if we're going to be effective in terms of dealing with the challenges that we've got in front of us. So AI can be an incredibly powerful tool there. We also need an independent FERC to make sure that we've got good regulation, predictable regulation, regulation that has the certainty that folks can plan for going forward. So we need to have that regulatory environment in place too.

Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL):

Thank you for your response. My district is poised to lead the charge by building an innovative quantum computing campus right in Chicago southeast side. I'm encouraged by the promise of world-class collaborations, exciting new technological advancements and ensuring economic development returns to this community with major projects like the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park and other large scale data centers coming to the area. We must also work to bring new clean energy generation online to help meet the projective low growth in the coming years. We could not simultaneously pull back from these critical investments are trying to lead on AI and critical manufacturing here in the us. Last question, Mr. Turk. What critical supply chain investments need to be made to ensure that we meet projected demand while ensuring reliability and affordability.

The Honorable David Turk:

So again, we've got a whole panoply of tax incentives, grants and loans. Let me give two specific examples. We talked about critical minerals earlier in this hearing because of those tax incentives, because of the grant money that we've been given. Thank you for giving us that From the Congress, from the Department of Energy perspective, we've now made a real dent. We're on a pathway to diversifying supply chains. China holds 80% of the processing for critical minerals in our world right now because of the grants, because of the loans, because of the tax incentives, we're on a pathway to increase in the US alone, of course, working with allies, 2100% lithium increase. I could give you a statistic for cobalt and other kinds of things. So we're on a pathway, but this is not the time to lean back to take these tools off the tool belt. We need to lean in on that front.

Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL):

I'm going to have to cut you off out of respect for my time. So I yield back, Mr. Chair.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

General lady yields back. The Chairman recognize Mr. Weber from Texas for five minutes.

Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Schmidt, I'm going to come to you and then Mr. Wang, you next. When discussing the power needs of the AI industry, it's important to look at the recent track record of investment decisions in generating facilities. Constellation Energy is investing 1.6 billion with the B dollars to restart three mile Island nuclear plant. Amazon Web Services paid 650 million to house a data center facility next to a nuclear plant. The Homer City Generating Station in Pennsylvania is investing 10 billion with the B dollars to convert a natural gas plant. Billions of dollars of investment have gone into AI and barely any is going to wind, solar or battery storage. So I've got kind of a two-pronged question here. First of all, we'll start this way. Can you discuss, well, let me make this statement. Is it possible that those investment companies used AI in their decision on how to invest in energy? Let that sink in for just a little bit. Okay. Can you discuss why AI companies are investing billions of dollars into dispatchable and reliable generating resources. I know you had the conversation with Dr. Dunn, but we're talking about real companies, real businesses making real investment decisions based on risk. Your thoughts?

Eric Schmidt:

So all of the data I've seen indicates that it's a fair choice now between renewables and batteries and essentially natural gas and so forth. In other words, the answer is you want both. How they make those decisions are highly local involving funding, permitting processes and so forth. Texas and what you're doing is phenomenal. If you look at many of the new data centers are being built in Texas because of the environment that you all have created, and some of the largest ones are being created there. So Texas is a really good model of, as you know, you have your own electric grid and it's highly unregulated. What I like about the Texas grid is that you see real power, real pricing power on essentially a microsecond level with respect to how people make these decisions. I hope that every company in America uses AI tools to make important strategic decisions. They are natural allies in the business decision process.

Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX):

Okay, I'm going to actually jump off the question line I had. So AI, so what happens if China, who is so far ahead of us, because we don't have our permitting process lined up, right? We're so stupid that it takes so long to permit stuff that China doesn't have that problem. What happens if they intercept and take over our AI? What happens then?

Eric Schmidt:

Well, I'm not suggesting they'll take over our AI. Our analysis is that China has very large power supplies compared to the United States. They do not have the power problem that we see.

Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX):

So they can't hold our AI hostage?

Eric Schmidt:

As a technical matter. No. What they can do is they can do, there are what are called adversarial attacks where they can essentially go in and screw with the model, excuse the term, and basically screw it up.

Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX):

What if they have better AI than we do?

Eric Schmidt:

That's a competitive issue. And the issue, one way to think about it is, and I'll make an argument, if you and I are competitors, you're the good guy. I'm the bad guy and I'm ahead of you and I'm six months ahead of you. You say, oh, it's only six months. But if the slope of innovation is near vertical, it's almost impossible for you to catch me up. That is a dynamically unseeable.

Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX):

And that doesn't work when you're talking about America's security at risk.

Eric Schmidt:

It puts our national security...

Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX):

Got you. Let me move on. Mr. Wang. The Energy Subcommittee held a hearing on the role of AI and Power, Americans Energy Future October 19th, 2023. During that hearing, we discussed how AI can be used to improve the performance of the grid used in oil and gas production and also some of the vulnerabilities of ai, like kind of you're alerting to Mr. Schmidt. I have no doubt that there been major advances in AI since that hearing. So I've got a couple questions from you. What benefits would there be from integrating AI into our nation's energy sector? And would you want that sooner rather than later and all the permitting to be reasonably quick?

Alexandr Wang:

I think what you've been alluding to through all your questions is a very important point, which we, I think have been grappling with in the AI industry, which is that AI has the ability to transform nearly every industry. What we refer to this in the industry is how do you move towards more agentic systems? How do you move towards systems where AI are able to make more decisions more quickly and result in an overall dramatically more efficient, more effective systems? This will tackle every industry over time, but particularly in the energy sector, it's critical. And the last answer is sooner rather than later.

Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX):

Gotcha. Mr. Chairman, I yield.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Gentlemen yields back, Chair recognizes Dr. Ruiz for five minutes.

Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Consumer protection, data privacy and artificial intelligence impact every American, but for me, I feel a deep responsibility to ensure that our nation gets this right, not just as a lawmaker, but as a father of two young daughters. I see how kids today are shaped by AI powered platforms and digital relationships like never before. While tech can inspire creativity, it also poses real risks. Studies link heavy social media use, especially for young girls to anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. Too often AI algorithms promote harmful content over healthy self-worth content. Dr. Schmidt, you've often cited the example of an AI enabled teddy bear that learns and evolves with a child highlighting the potential risks of such intimate AI relationships. As this scenario becomes increasingly plausible, what steps are companies taking to design systems that protect rather than exploit young users?

Eric Schmidt:

So thank you. Every company is very concerned about the point you're making and every company is trying to address this question of let's call it a rogue AI that comes out of themselves partly for moral reasons, but also it's just bad for business as to whether the government will ultimately regulate that area. It's not clear to me. You do have some things that you could do right now. There's a law called COPPA, which has a 13-year, you have to be 13 to be online. I have strongly recommended to be raised to 16 for that reason. You can also look at Section 230 and try to reduce some of the most egregious harms, and that has been discussed for some time in Congress. Those small changes would take the most extreme examples of harm and take them out of the market, which is probably a good thing.

Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA):

Thank you. Too often, systems are designed to keep kids online longer to collect their data and serve them ads for profit. They're not designed to keep them safe, respect their privacy, or ensure age-appropriate content. That's why we need action. We need enforceable privacy safeguards and clear rules on how AI interacts with miners because no algorithm should decide what's best for our kids without oversight. But we must also be honest about what could stand in the way the sweeping tariffs proposed last week by the Trump administration risks slowing innovation, raising costs on the very tools needed to build safer online spaces and delaying efforts to hold tech companies accountable. They risk putting petty politics ahead of public good, and in doing so, they leave our most vulnerable. Our kids exposed. Dr. Schmidt, as efforts to strengthen data privacy and AI safeguards move forward. How do you anticipate the 2025 Trump administration's tariffs will affect our ability to develop and deploy privacy-first technologies designed to better protect young users online

Eric Schmidt:

I don't know that I can make the combination in the question. I'll have to think about it. I will tell you that tariffs are tax increases. Tax increases, slow down progress, increased costs lead to inflation are generally bad.

Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA):

Deputy Secretary Turk, the Department of Energy, particularly through its national labs, has been deeply engaged in advancing AI safety and red teaming efforts. Can you speak to the importance of DOE's role in this space and what the implications might be if that role were diminished or reassigned by the administration?

The Honorable David Turk:

Absolutely. We've got world-class experts at our national labs, nuclear experts, bio weapons experts. We need to make sure that that expertise is tapped into, those individuals are utilized for this red teaming, right? So before a model comes out, have those folks with their expertise working with the companies to make sure that those models not purposefully. I don't think any company certainly here would purposefully put out a model that allows a terrorist to build a nuclear weapon, but they don't have the nuclear expertise to ensure that that's the case. That's why having these experts, these government experts, these independent experts are so important as part of that red teaming. Getting rid of those folks is absolutely a national security concern. Would have serious national security implications, not just for AI, but for everything that we need those experts for.

Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA):

Thank you. We have the opportunity and the responsibility to get this right. We cannot afford to wait until we see another crisis in youth mental health, another generation struggling with digital addiction or another data breach exposing millions of children's personal information. So I urge my colleagues, let's put families first. Thank you. And I yield back.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Thank you. Dr. Ruiz yields back. Mr. Allen recognized for five minutes.

Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA):

Thank you Chair Guthrie for hosting this full committee hearing, examining AI and had impacts developments with an all-out energy approach and the technology and certainly we've got to be competitive globally. In fact, we wouldn't be having this hearing if President Trump were not in office because he has said that part of his agenda is an all out energy program. We need to dominate energy in the world. And of course, AI, we understand that race and everything that we are doing our Congress is doing is to provide every opportunity for us to be the energy dominant country that we were just six years ago. And so that's so critical and that's why we're having this hearing today to find out, okay, what do we need to do to make that happen? I'd like to thank you for being here. Our witnesses. With the emergence of AI, the US has to be a global leader.

To be a leader in AI. It is critical that our energy sector is equipped to meet the demands that AI poses. Dr. Schmidt in about 2030, data centers can consume upwards of 9% of total US electricity. At the same time as we're seeing historic projections of electricity demand. Because of AI developments in the nation's bulk power system is already under incredible strains. In fact, the North American Electric Reliable Corporation or NERC found in their last long-term reliability assessment that half the nation is at risk of resource adequacy. We know in some states we're having brownouts that as half the nation is at risk to blackouts during times of extreme weather. In my opinion, our nation will need significantly more power to meet these demands and fast. How can we balance the needs of everyday Americans to keep the lights on while simultaneously powering developments in AI models?

Eric Schmidt:

The answer of course starts with our overall premise, which is more of everything. It also includes a more intelligent grid that is more flexible when bad things happen. That is now possible with AI and with grid monetization. You need both.

Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA):

Mr. Bhatia, last month we heard directly from the grid operators talking about grid, who are charged with overseeing the reliability of our electric grid. And they highlighted one of the biggest issues facing the bolt power system is the premature retirement of base load power plants, which has been mentioned quite often in this hearing. We also heard that places like New England who do not have sufficient natural gas capability and longstanding opposition to nuclear energy are not seeing the same uptick in new investments or data centers and manufacturing facilities. My home state of Georgia, which has been the best state to do business in 12 years in a row, has been a leader in investment in job creating industries, largely because of our pro-business environment and diverse slate of base load generating resources. In fact, now we have just added two plant Vogel, two more units, and it is the largest clean energy facility in the United States built in the last 30 years. Given your company's energy intensive nature, how important is access to reliable, affordable electricity when deciding where to invest in US manufacturing facilities?

Manish Bhatia:

Thank you Congressman. And I'd like to just start by giving a call out to our research and development center that we have in your home state, and we have certainly found that over time that that has been a wonderful place for us to attract talent and grow our engineering capabilities there. In terms of your question on base load, absolutely. I think many of the questions today have been focused on that and for semiconductor operations we have very, very consistent loads. We have of course high loads and the reliability of the power is incredibly important as I've mentioned earlier. So nuclear power, hydroelectric power, these are excellent fits for us, but we also agree with the other panelists and all of the above approaches is what's required.

Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA):

Good. A few. Mr. Bhatia, I have a few yes or no questions. I'm going to ask you, do you agree that permitting reform is needed to meet as you discuss in your testimony our rising energy demand?

Manish Bhatia:

Yes.

Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA):

Do you agree that it includes air permitting?

Manish Bhatia:

Yes.

Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA):

The National Ambient Air Quality Standards implemented by the Biden Harris administration's EPA, for example, have proven to be a significant burden on the US manufacturing base. These stringent regulations have made it difficult to permit and develop many of the facilities needed to support our next generation of industrial base. Whether it be PM 2.5 or ozone EPA needs to be more flexible. No question about it.

My time is expired. I have an additional question for you. If you would answer that for the record, I would appreciate it. Now you're back.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Thank you. The gentleman yields back, Chair recognizes Ms. Clarke for five minutes for questions.

Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY):

Thank you very much. Chairman Guthrie, Ranking Member Pallone and to our panelists for today's hearing. Thank you to our witnesses for being here to testify. And let me just say that it is a pleasure to see Micron represented on this panel as Micron is making historic investments in New York that will transform our state and the semiconductor industry more broadly. Members of this Committee are well aware that generative artificial intelligence is proven to be one of the most impressive technological advancements of this generation, but with a tool so expansive, it is up to us to ensure that AI systems are developed and deployed responsibly and with consumers in mind. Last Congress, I had the honor of being appointed to the bipartisan task force on artificial intelligence, which was established to ensure that the United States continues to lead in AI innovation as well as examine appropriate guardrails to protect against emerging threats like those outlined in the 2023 GAO report.

On the rapid use and growth of AI, I've been sounding the alarm on issues related to AI and algorithms for years. Namely the potential for algorithmic bias. AI has only gotten smarter and with its rapid development, consumers are faced with the increasingly acute potential for harm caused by algorithmic discrimination. For example, facial recognition technology. A tool used by both retail stores and law enforcement has repeatedly shown an inability to accurately identify people of color, which has led to multiple instances of false identification and unwarranted harassment. And when it comes to home ownership, black applicants are denied mortgages at higher rates, a decision that is increasingly made based on algorithms. In healthcare, algorithmic bias can lead to misdiagnosis as the people of color are historically underrepresented in existing data sets and algorithms are improperly tested for accuracy. My top priority with respect to the growing use of AI is simple.

We need to make it abundantly clear to developers and deployers of algorithmic systems that Americans do not forfeit their civil liberties when they go online. That is why I've prioritized algorithmic accountability and have fought to codify and make explicitly clear that civil rights protection still apply in the digital realm, especially when AI is used in critical decision making lines of code remain exempt from our anti-discrimination laws and too often go unchecked. Every algorithm has an author, every bias has an origin through proper regulation, we must ensure safety, inclusion and equity are top of mind in the deployment of automated critical decision-making systems that affect Americans' lives. And while I'm pleased with the final report of the bipartisan task force on AI and find that it serves as a productive framework to set guardrails on AI that includes civil rights and liberties, the conversation does not end there. It is up to this committee, my Republican colleagues who seemingly have an aversion to the word civil rights to properly protect all Americans when they either electively or unknowingly use AI to make critical life decisions. I have one question, Mr. Turk, do you agree that it is important to ensure that AI systems are rigorously tested for bias before they're deployed and on a regular basis thereafter?

The Honorable David Turk:

Well, let me first thank you for your leadership on the bipartisan task force and more generally, and I completely agree, we need to have those kinds of protections in place. This is a powerful technology, an incredibly powerful technology, and we need to get this right.

Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY):

Yeah, I'm just concerned that some biases get baked into our systems and that inaccuracy can be detrimental not only to communities, but to our ability as a nation to be as strong as possible, particularly when guarding against adversaries that seek to do us harm. So thank you for your work, gentlemen. I appreciate all that you are doing young man, Mr. Wang, you are making it happen. We are proud of you, much continued success and I yield back the balance of my time.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Thank you. The gentle lady yells back and the Chair, recognize Mr. Balderson for five minutes.

Rep. Troy Balderson (R-OH):

Thank you Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding this hearing today and I'd like to thank all the witnesses for being here also today. Lemme start with you Dr. Schmidt. I represent Ohio's 12th Congressional District, which covers central and southeastern Ohio, Lincoln County, which I'm proud to represent as one of the largest clusters of data centers in the country. Google, Amazon Web Services, Meta, QTS Vantage and more all over have data centers in central Ohio and my district. In total power demand from data centers will reach 5,000 megawatts in central Ohio by 2030 based on signed power agreements. Just last month, Williams announced a $1.6 billion investment to build two new natural gas fire plants in Lincoln County with a combined capacity of 400 megawatts. This reliable baseload power generation is critical to meet growing demand in central Ohio. Dr. Schmidt, in order to alleviate strain on the electric grid, I'm curious what role or involvement you think these tech companies should have in helping to bring in new generation to secure the massive amounts of power needed for their facilities and how should these companies partner with grid operators or power providers to ensure we can properly account for growing tracking demand?

Eric Schmidt:

So when I was at Google, we made a bet on Ohio and we built the largest data center at the time in the world, which was massive and I used to go visit it and so, oh my god, the data centers you're describing are 10 times larger than anything I ever built way back when I was doing this only seven years ago. So it gives you a sense of the scale of the investment in what you're doing. The best thing to do is to have a strategy within your state where everybody agrees to solve the energy, power problem. We found in working in Ohio that we were able to get access to the high voltage lines that we could not get access elsewhere. We built our own substations, which are also massive. That's what it takes. That's what every one of you is going to have to do to have your states be a center for the AI revolution.

Rep. Troy Balderson (R-OH):

Thank you. Mr. Bhatia, I switch to you. I'd also like to hear your thoughts on this. What is Micron doing to be proactive and securing the power needed for these chip fabs?

Manish Bhatia:

So as part of our selection of the locations where we will be expanding, the power availability and the agreements that we could reach with local power companies was a key part of that criteria. As I mentioned before, nuclear power, hydroelectric power are both very good fits for us and those are in strong availability in the areas where we selected and we continue to work with the providers in those areas to be able to ensure that we can have more investments to be able to have long-term access to that affordable and reliable power.

Rep. Troy Balderson (R-OH):

Thank you. I'll continue with you sir. You note that one of America's strongest competitive advantages compared to markets in Asia is a reliable and affordable energy supply. I strongly agree with you with this assessment that we must maintain this key competitive advantage by building out generating capacity to meet the expected short term surge in energy demand after years of flat growth. However, right now we're seeing massive backlogs of generation project and grid operators interconnection queues depending upon the region. Power projects are sitting and waiting and interconnection queues for five years before they could even get studied and then ultimately built and connected to the grid. The build out of AI and data centers isn't happening in five years. It isn't happening now. And these facilities need power. You have concerns that the current process can take years and years just for new power generation projects to get through the queue.

Manish Bhatia:

Yes.

Rep. Troy Balderson (R-OH):

Thank you. Do you think Congress can play a role in ensuring new generation is getting online and connected faster given the historic increase in power demand?

Manish Bhatia:

Yes.

Rep. Troy Balderson (R-OH):

Thank you very much, Dr. Schmidt. Would you like to add anything to that?

Eric Schmidt:

The interconnection queues are a very good example of something, which is something that you all need to work on. Basically getting the system to even more flexible. When the industry shows the demand, I mean the delays are crazy, right? People, they have the money, they have the ability to get the power built and they can't interconnect it. That's a good example of grid modernization. It applies to everybody.

Rep. Troy Balderson (R-OH):

Sir, I encourage you. We introduced some legislation called the Grid Act and it's all about the interconnection queue. So with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you

Rep. John Joyce (R-PA):

Gentleman yields, the Chair recognizes a gentleman from California, Mr. Peters for his five minutes.

Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. I do think it's great that the whole committee is hearing this and I thought particularly Dr. Schmidt, I want to compliment you on setting the table on this because we are caught up in a lot of little things and you really gave us a very big perspective on how important and daunting this is. I had a bunch of questions from before. I'm only going to ask one, which is about the Energy Permitting Reform Act or EPRA, which was the senate permitting deal at the end. Mr. Turk, can you talk a little bit about the importance of transmission and the importance of inter-regional planning and inter-regional transmission is a way to help deal with our energy needs?

The Honorable David Turk:

Well put simply, we just need to make improvements. We need to get the most out of our existing transmission. Great enhancing technologies, reconductoring, bringing AI and other tools to make sure that we're smart about these assets and they're flexible and they're smart. And then secondly, we do need new transmission and it does take too long in our country to build transmission. We under went a whole series of reforms in the Biden administration to try to improve that and I think we made some significant progress, but we need to do more and certainly Congress has an incredibly important role here.

Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA):

Well, I'm an advocate on this committee and the energy subcommittee for permit reform. We did a lot of work to get EPRA to the point it was. I think we should start with that and adopt it. I would say that this concept of all of the above energy I understand. I think sometimes it's all of the above as long as it's natural gas. The thing I would say is I was recently at a meeting with the energy company and some of my Republican colleagues where they said, now it takes five years to get a natural gas plant online, largely because of the supply chain constraints and getting turbines, but you can get solar within a year. And the companies was begging us not to repeal the incentives for solar power and probably wind that are in the IRA and I hope when we talk about all of the above, we are really committed to all of the above and that we don't do something to shoot ourselves in the foot with respect to natural gas.

I'm more than willing to work on natural gas. I've been saying like a broken record. What I want out of that from an environmental perspective is some agreement on the regulation of fugitive emissions, methane emissions. It's an easy thing to do. It's something the industry's open to. If we did that here, it would solve a lot of, it would answer a lot of the questions we have about the use of methane, our use of natural gas as a bridge fuel. I think that's an easy thing to follow. I would reiterate what some other people see the need to invest in basic science is really critical here. China is more than keeping pace with us. They're out investing us by quite a bit. In my district. A lot of that is in biotechnology, but a lot of it is in fusion and I think that's something that we have to continue to invest in.

It would really solve a lot of problems, but it takes investment and I think investment in energy in our universities, the best university system in the world, best set of universities in the world is really critical for this country. I agree that our data is ridiculously unmanaged and uncoordinated. We saw this in COVID. You can't draw conclusions from a data set that's so disparate and unorganized. I think that your comments were really wise about that, sir, and I think that Congress has a role in making sure that we get on top of that. I don't want to overlook the role of imports in this. I mean, we do not make solar panels here. We import a lot of things. We're making it more expensive. It's craziness. It's a craziness. And I think for the Republicans who used to be such strong supporters of free trade and Democrats like me who supported both the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the USMCA negotiated by Donald Trump, we can't forget the benefits of that international trading system and the cost of inputs that we need to solve this problem are really being heightened by this trade war and this self-harm.

I do want to say too that I think we should think hard about whether some of the calculations can be decentralized. We've taken for granted, we've taken as a given that there's a certain amount of energy we need. I have no doubt that it's a lot. I'd actually heard five gigawatts for data centers now I hear 10. That's a massive challenge. We ought to think about whether as systemically some of those calculations could be done on these handheld devices would take some of the power requirements away from those big facilities. And finally, the other thing I would observe as a Californian is we can't let ourselves get into the situation you're in with privacy where we have 38 different standards across the country. This committee's got to come to grips with the notion we have to do preemption. There's a federal supremacy clause for that reason. This has got to be a national policy. We've got to set national standards, we've got to do it on privacy, we've got to do it on AI and we can't be scared of using our power here. Thank you very much. We have a lot of work to do. Again, thanks so much for the witnesses. And I yield back.

Rep. John Joyce (R-PA):

The gentleman yields. The Chair recognizes a gentleman from Texas, Mr. Pfluger for five minutes.

Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Schmidt. Mr. Bhatia, what role will LNG play in providing the power that's necessary for AI and data centers?

Eric Schmidt:

I'm sorry, LNG?

Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX):

Natural gas.

Eric Schmidt:

Natural gas. It sure looks like natural gas is needed in most renewable scenarios because of essentially as a peaker plant. It also looks like we just need more natural gas generation kind of everywhere.

Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX):

Mr. Bhatia, you mentioned in your testimony earlier today about concerns with intermittent power. So when we're looking at sourcing, what do you need intermittent or do you need a reliable base load?

Manish Bhatia:

Well, so we have, obviously we need reliable base load power. Natural gas has the ability to be able to be a really good smoothing capability for the and buffer, basically for the ups and downs of the overall grid. And that's why I would agree with Dr. Schmidt that it's an important area and it's an area that the United States has a tremendous amount of capability in.

Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX):

The power providers were here. Ercot testified last week and they said that Texas alone is that a peak demand of about 80 to 85 gigs right now, and that's going to increase in the next four to five years to 150. So Mr. Turk, are you familiar with the study that DOE did last year actually started in 2023 on LNG?

The Honorable David Turk:

I am.

Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX):

What was your role?

The Honorable David Turk:

I was at that time the Deputy Secretary, the number two official, and I was very involved.

Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX):

You were involved with that report?

The Honorable David Turk:

I was.

Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX):

What was the title of that report?

The Honorable David Turk:

I don't remember what the title of the report was. What we did is we asked a number of our national labs to give us independent assessment.

Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX):

Okay. When was that report released?

The Honorable David Turk:

We pushed our national labs to do it as quickly as possible and it released When did Department of Energy release the report release? I think we ended up releasing it late last year, early this year.

Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX):

Okay, so you actually did release it? We did release it. Were there sections that were redacted?

The Honorable David Turk:

Not to my knowledge. We believe very strongly that's what was reported. We wanted an independent analysis to look at the cost implications, the environmental implications, and we did not suppress any information whatsoever.

Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX):

Were you aware of the 2023 studies findings prior to the January 26th decision to indefinitely ban new export authorizations under Section Three of the Natural Gas Act?

The Honorable David Turk:

So we didn't ban any. We did the study in order to take a step back because we've authorized so much up to half of our natural gas production right now is authorized to actually go abroad and to be sold, including to China. What we did was take a pause, I'll reclaim did the study. I'll

Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX):

We can debate this all day long, but why was the study not released immediately after it was done?

The Honorable David Turk:

So it was, he released the study once the experts finished the..

Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX):

Do you disagree that the study was more favorable to LNG than the Biden administration would've liked and that's why there was a pause put on LNG exports.

The Honorable David Turk:

The pause was so that we could do the study before making decisions and to actually have our independent experts and the independent experts in our national labs were the one who did the study.

Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX):

Okay. So the study actually came out, was released by Secretary Wright and so we released.

The Honorable David Turk:

The study, the Biden administration…

Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX):

Released the study in December of 26 or December of 24, excuse me. And it came out as a pretty favorable with regards to emissions, but it was delayed by the Biden administration for months. It wasn't on being released. Well, that's.

The Honorable David Turk:

It wasn't. I was there. It wasn't delayed. That's how long it took because we wanted a thorough independent analysis by several of our national labs.

Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX):

So do you agree that the emissions of natural gas were better and more consistent and actually more favorable than what you claimed and what Secretary Granholm claimed in the attempt to ban natural gas exports?

The Honorable David Turk:

So LNG exports have a very, very significant, very significant greenhouse gas footprint. So just one project, we're talking four BCF per day. That project itself has more emissions throughout the life cycle methane emissions. But CO2 combustion when that gas is burned than 141 countries

Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX):

In our world, you have.

The Honorable David Turk:

An answer. It's one facility, 141 countries. In our world, that's a pretty significant.

Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX):

So you stand by your decision to ban LNG exports.

The Honorable David Turk:

Again, we did a pause so we could do the study stand by so that any secretary of state could have good independent analysis.

Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX):

Your decision to do that is going to impact these guys right here. It's going to impact our ability to provide power for the AI data center.

The Honorable David Turk:

So again, that's LNG that's being exported. This had nothing to do with domestic use of gas here.

Rep. John Joyce (R-PA):

The gentlemen yields. The chair now recognizes Mr. Soto from Florida for his five minutes.

Rep. Darren Soto (D-FL):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Listening to this hearing, I feel like we're in a time warp. Back to 2024, Biden was President. We had the strongest economy in the world and we were free to debate the finer points of AI regulation, the IRA and data centers, but it's April 9th, 80 days into the Trump administration and Trump's tariffs, chaos and deportations have sent our economy into a free fall. Well, our friends across the aisle just bury your heads in the sand and pretend this isn't happening or will you join us to help fix it. Speaker Johnson just today blocked any consideration of tariffs until September 30th. He put a straight jacket on the US House of Representatives to even try to address this issue. Meanwhile, AI data centers could see an estimated 30% increase in expenses to build according to Fortune Magazine this week, air conditioning, liquid cooling systems, transformers, circuit breakers, cabling, routers, switches, construction materials, battery systems will all go up because of Trump's tariffs. So is the biggest threat to AI overregulation or is it the tariffs? Duh. Mr. Turk, what do you think is the biggest threat right now to AI development? Is it the overregulation allegedly, or is it tariffs?

The Honorable David Turk:

I think tariffs increase costs and they increase uncertainty. And that is damaging for AI being built in our country, but it's damaging across our economy.

Rep. Darren Soto (D-FL):

And then I'm worried about demand and access to capital or heard in both Newsweek and Fortune magazine this week. Access to capital is in real jeopardy because major tech companies, the biggest investors in AI, see a potential recession on the way and their core businesses are threatened. Ad spending drops, the capital drops during a recession. Dr. Schmidt, we saw that the Google shares were at $200 a share when Trump took office and now they're at $146, a 27% drop in three months. No one celebrates that. That's awful. That would've a negative effect on future AI investments for Google right now. Isn't that true?

Eric Schmidt:

Don't remind me of the stock price.

Rep. Darren Soto (D-FL):

Yes. I didn't mean that. I'm not here to attack anybody, but how does that affect Google's investment in future AI?

Eric Schmidt:

I can't speak for Google, but I can say in general, the genius of the American financial system, aside from the fact that we're a reserve currency, is that crazy entrepreneurs can raise billions of dollars on a whim, on a risk. That's why we're leading. If that system breaks the system that is the unification of the government, the private sector and academics, and that money is not available, we're toast.

Rep. Darren Soto (D-FL):

Yeah, we're the world's currency right now, but you know that's in jeopardy as we speak. Mr. Bhatia, we saw Micron take a thump two from 109 per share when Trump took office to 65 today of 41% drop. Again, no one likes this or celebrates this, but how does that affect your access to capital and the ability for you to continue to develop AI microchips in technology?

Manish Bhatia:

We take a long-term view and the demand for growing for memory, the demand for data, therefore the demand for memory continues to grow. It's a circular trend. And so we intend our investments to be for the longterm, but we have to bring them online in line with the demand trends that we see. And so we continue to expand in that way, but that shows the importance of, and these kind of volatile events will happen from time to time in our industry and that shows the importance of us having a durable, predictable investment tax credit to be able to support our continued expansion here in the United States where we're committed to building.

Rep. Darren Soto (D-FL):

We all want to make sure these stocks go back up and people's retirements are protected and that's why this Congress needs to work together. We did work together on the Bipartisan Advance Act, which boosted nuclear signed by President Biden bipartisan product from this committee. Mr. Turk, how does speeding up of deployment, licensing and new reactors and fuels help through nuclear the future of AI?

The Honorable David Turk:

I think it's a big deal and thank you for the leadership on the Advanced Act. We need to not only get the most out of the resources that we've got, including those resources that can be brought on quickly to our grid right now, that's solar and storage and wind. Those are the resources that allow us to bring electrons on quickly to power these AI data centers. But we absolutely have to work on clean base load power. Nuclear is an incredibly important part of that equation. Enhanced geothermal is another incredibly important part. And so we need to have the research, we need to have the investment and we need to have those tools as quickly as we can.

Rep. Darren Soto (D-FL):

Thanks. I yield back,

Rep. John Joyce (R-PA):

Gentlemen, yields the Chair now recognizes a gentleman from Idaho, Mr. Fulcher for five minutes.

Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-ID):

Mr. Bhatia, in a different era, back years ago, I was privileged to work for Micron technology. Technically I began with the startup phase. It was still in startup phase, spent 15 years there. I cannot tell you how proud I am of that and the education that I received personally and the experience life experience that was truly unique and I could not have higher regard for your company. And so please know that at that time, as I say, things were different, but we sold ourselves. We positioned ourselves with customers and potential customers that most of our costs were fixed. And whether we produced one die or a million die, the costs were largely the same and that gave us the ability to sell ourselves as American supplier. Now today you discussed how energy is one of the factors that's changed that business model. Back in those days it was all about die size and could we stack the capacitors and make it efficient and that was the secret sauce and if we got that, we won. What's changed in today's business model other than the energy that you correctly spoke about to change that strategy and business model in the framework that you're operating in today?

Manish Bhatia:

Thank you Congressman, and thank you for your time in the early days of Micron and helping put the company on the track to where it is today. I think the biggest thing that's changed is the cost competitiveness of building and operating fabs in the United States over this last 25 to 30 years has become a widening gap between doing that in the United States versus Asian countries where we operate and where our competitors.

Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-ID):

Construction cost. Just to be clear, construction.

Manish Bhatia:

Permitting construction cost is one of the biggest gaps. It's probably the biggest gap between the Asian countries and where our competitors are versus United States. In fact, the energy is an area that has been a bright spot for the United States and it's an area that the folks of this hearing is to sure that it continues to be an area of advantage for semiconductor industry, for Micron, but also for many other industries so that we're able to be able to make sure that all of these projects can come to fruition.

And the investments we're making in workforce. We certainly believe that in partnership with the many different universities that we're working with across the country, that we're going to be able to redevelop a pipeline of skills and capabilities that have been lost over the years as manufacturing left the country. We're also working with various different military exit organizations to be able to train veterans to come and work because we think there's a really good overlap between the skills that they have from the military and the skills that they have to be able to operate and maintain fabs. And I think as I've mentioned before, expanding and extending the currently expiring investment tax credit for semiconductor projects is really, really very critical.

Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-ID):

Got it. I'm going to come back to you if I have time. Mr. Wang, I want to ask you a question. In your testimony you said there's three things Congress should do in order to move forward regarding AI. The second point you made was to one federal AI standard. We've had discussions about that on the committee. Dig that a little deeper, peel that onion back. Specifically, what should those standards be to the best of your advice?

Alexandr Wang:

Yes. So first of all, just speaking as an AI company and being able to operate and innovate effectively, we need one federal standard. We cannot afford a patchwork of 50 different state standards. Peeling the onion back, we believe that we need to create a regulatory framework that enables innovation while still adding some level of guardrails. So our view is we need a use case sector-specific regulatory framework where in certain industries like medicine or financial services or insurance or others, where there should be heightened levels of scrutiny or heightened levels of controls for what AI systems can and should do, we should put those in place. But in other industries where we want the core technology to advance more rapidly and more effectively, we need to allow that to happen.

Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-ID):

Okay, I'm about out of time and I'm going to submit some questions for the record, Mr. Chairman, but Mr. Wang, I do think you're a wealth of knowledge and I would just say to you and the rest of the committee as we go about forward in setting or trying to set some federal standards, please be careful what you ask for because you just might get it and we can be a friend or we can be a very ugly big brother. And I say that because it's very difficult to identify the proper role of federal government with these things. So thank you to all those who testified.I yield back.

Rep. John Joyce (R-PA):

Gentleman yields. The chair recognizes the general lady from Michigan, Mrs. Dingell for her five minutes.

Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI):

Thank you Mr. Chairman and thank to Chair Guthrie and Ranking Member Pallone for convening this hearing. AI, as has been discussed today, is transforming every sector from healthcare and transportation to manufacturing. But with rapid advancements come serious challenges such as data privacy, risks, arithmetic bias, and the growing threat of foreign adversaries exploiting our vulnerabilities. And we cannot afford to let America's data and personal information be weaponized by China or other adversaries or allow AI to spread unchecked through deep fakes, robocalls and deceptive ads. So I was proud to help lead TAKE IT DOWN Act, which passed out of the committee yesterday to hold bad actors accountable for sharing non-consensual deepfake content online and to protect survivors. AI when paired with 5G and emerging technologies is already transforming lives, streamlining public services, modernizing transportation, and improving healthcare outcomes. But to lead, we have to invest. That's what we were doing during the Biden administration.

And quite frankly, I'm very worried that we are now witnessing efforts to undo that progress programs that were signed into law through the bipartisan infrastructure law, the Chips and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, all of which provided funding that is crucial for the AI ecosystem are being dismantled. And these investments aren't just about clean energy. That's what people don't understand. They're about global competitiveness, job creation, and securing the future of the American industry. The IRA has been critical to accelerating domestic manufacturing, especially in the auto sector. I admit that's one I care about deeply, which remains the backbone of the American economy. My Republican colleagues say we must outcompete China in AI. They're right, we must. I agree, but you don't win it by slashing your own tires. You can't lead by cutting funding, firing experts, and abandoning the public private partnerships at Fuel Innovation. Secretary Turk, does cutting funding from agencies like the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security holding up chips investments threatening that they may not happen. Firing technical experts and NIST keep the US competitive in the global AI race, especially as China ramps up its investments and what happens if we walk away from CHIPS and the IRA incentives?

The Honorable David Turk:

I think this is exactly the wrong time to walk away from those incentives.

Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI):

Okay, short, Mr. Bhatia, I like it. It's wrong. What are the consequences of repealing the tax credits and public investments that are driving domestic industry growth and clean energy and advanced manufacturing?

Manish Bhatia:

Well, Congresswoman, first I'd like to just comment that I'm proud of and born and raised in Michigan. My first job in manufacturing was more than 30 years ago in the body shop, and that created my love of manufacturing and a thriving automotive industry. As you said in your comments, is I think critical for the country's economic health as well as for national security. Absolutely agree that we need to have continued support for investment tax credits for areas that are critical to AI, including of course semiconductor manufacturing. The tax credit that was passed is expiring and this will create a challenge for continued investment, especially long-term investment because this is not just a five year race. This is a 15, 20 year race that we're getting into and we want to make sure we have leadership in technology and capacity together to be able to lead in creating and enabling the AI revolution.

Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI):

Thank you. Dr. Schmidt. Do companies operated in the US currently have meaningful incentives to protect consumer data and privacy? Are the current patchwork of state laws and voluntary standards sufficient? Or would a comprehensive federal privacy law with strong data minimization provide greater clarity and consistency for both consumers and the industry?

Eric Schmidt:

I think there's a general view in the industry that a single privacy law would be a good outcome. I think it'll be very hard to achieve. My own opinion is given. that's hard to achieve, you're better off working on the most extreme cases such as I fully support the bill you did yesterday. That's a good example of an extreme case. Maybe there's some other extreme cases that we could also handle through your good work.

Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI):

More questions and I want to dig into that too, Mr. Chairman, because I'm out. I'm going to have questions for the record as some of my other colleagues do, but this is a very important issue. All of them are. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I yield back.

Rep. John Joyce (R-PA):

The general lady yields. The Chair recognizes the general woman from Tennessee, Dr. Harshbarger for her five minutes.

Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-TN):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the witnesses for being here today. I'll start with you Dr. Smith. When tech companies are building the future of AI in the United States, we know these data centers use massive sums of energy and for the most part, they're going to be running at maximum capacity 24/7. And this technology requires more base load power production rather than renewables like wind and energy where that production fluctuates. And my question is, how would it strengthen America's bid to lead the AI economy if we adopted a more friendly environment for natural gas and build out additional pipeline infrastructure?

Eric Schmidt:

I agree with the need for more natural gas in the United States, more pipelines. I'd also point out that you can achieve the same base load goal with a combination of batteries and renewable. I think that the industry and the energy suppliers should make those on an economic basis. I think the collective panel here is telling all of you, all of more is better.

Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-TN):

Yeah, all of the above. Mr. Bhatia, your testimony goes into great detail about the difficulties of navigating US permitting law. Does the challenge Micron faces when building a facility like the one you're working on in New York, chip makers would make the chip makers reconsider the United States? And if so, how could the US be? Could it be leaving opportunities on the table by failing to update NEPA?

Manish Bhatia:

So certainly we have experienced delays and the duplicative nature of the process has been a challenge. And it's a challenge for I think any company who has to go through the NEPA process, whether in semiconductors or in other areas. And there will be other NEPA projects including potentially in energy and other sectors where I think that there is a potential for some streamlining to have federal and state processes to be harmonized so that we don't have to go through the extended time.

Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-TN):

Yeah, it is duplicative. I mean very much so. Thank you, sir. Mr. Wong, one thing I really loved is government efficiency. And I was inspired by your testimony, by your recommendation at implementing AI applications for the government could free up public employees to think more strategically and could reduce regulatory backlogs. So how could the administration use AI to lower taxpayer burdens and increase government efficiency?

Alexandr Wang:

The opportunities for AI to aid in government efficiency are immense. And this is one of the areas where I think AI can have tremendous impact very, very quickly. Actually, this goes to one of the things that we are talking a lot about in the industry, which is moving towards an agent government. So how can we enable AI agents to start speeding up and streamlining a lot of the processes that we have within the government so that they go from years to weeks or potentially even days? So a few examples of that I think about how we can use AI to cut down the time it takes to handle veteran healthcare paperwork or in AI system that could vastly improve fraud detection at the IRS. And then I think the combination, if you look at every single agency, there's immense opportunity and you can go across, we see this in the DOD who we work very closely with.

We're working with them recently. We've been deploying a system called Thunder Forge, which is a system for using AI for military planning and war gaming, a process that currently is extremely manually intensive. And we all know that to be competitive in the future, we need to be more efficient. So there's just a wealth of opportunity, which is one of the reasons why we recommend that ideally every federal agency should have some flagship AI programs to start implementing and getting into the process of utilizing AI and AI agents to streamline more of their processes. And ultimately, if we do that today, we'll reap the benefits in the years to come.

Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-TN):

You're right, I see that already in some of the things we've already found with fraud, waste and abuse and some other, we don't even communicate within an agency for heaven's sakes. So AI would absolutely benefit you Keep doing your work young man. Okay. Alright. With that Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Rep. John Joyce (R-PA):

General lady yields. The chair recognizes Mr. Veasey from Texas for his five minutes of questioning.

Rep. Mark Veasey (D-TX):

Thank you, sir. And I think this is amazing that we're here having this conversation today. Right now in the Dallas-Fort Worth region, we are literally becoming a hub for advanced manufacturing and AI innovation. And you can see it in all the new facilities that are opening up. We've had the Facebook data center for a long time now, but we have groundbreaking on several other new centers in the alliance corridor, new Crowley and near Ben Brick and Fort Worth. And this is really amazing because you can see the new facilities going up and the jobs that they're bringing along with them, which is very, very important. It is generational and it's really helping the DFW area lead the charge in this area. But as we lean into the future, we have to be clear out about what comes with it because AI just doesn't run on code and it runs on power.

Something that we talk a lot about on this committee. And with a massive growth of data centers and AI infrastructure that is happening right now, it's putting a tremendous strain on the grid and we have to get ahead of this or consumers could end up footing the bill on this through higher prices and tighter capacity and more volatility. And so we can't treat energy demand from AI like an afterthought. We got to be smart, we got to keep the lights on, we got to keep the bills affordable, and we got to keep the grid resilient, especially in places like Texas. That's a huge part of our country's economy, but also because we've already seen by what not investing in the grid can look like in 2021 during winter storm uri. Because if AI moves forward without guardrails for jobs, for privacy and for families, we really risk turning a lot of this promise into disruption. And I had a question for Mr. Turk. Do you believe the Department of Energy or Congress needs to take more aggressive steps to plan for and manage the energy load coming from AI infrastructure? And are there policies that you'd recommend to ensure grid reliability? And again, affordability.

The Honorable David Turk:

Absolutely is the short answer. And fortunately, Congress provided a whole range of tax incentives, grants and loans that are having a real impact right now on making prices more affordable, not only for AI companies, but also for consumers across the country. And it's helping to improve our grid reliability. Also, I know there's an active discussion going on right now in Congress. Do you all repeal those tax incentives that are lowering costs and allowing us to bring electrons on more quickly? And we look at what type of electrons are going to be brought on most quickly in our country? It's solar, it's wind, it's storage. That's what the experts, that's what the utility CEOs are saying. Unfortunately right now we have a backlog on natural gas turbines right now that is making it very challenging to bring natural gas on as quickly as some AI companies might want it to. So if you want to bring on electrons quickly, keep those tax incentives, keep those grants, keep those loans in place so that we can do it quickly, we can do it affordably. And that reduces costs for everybody, including for consumers.

Rep. Mark Veasey (D-TX):

Yeah, absolutely. And it keeps America ahead by us investing in those things. You are at DOE when the Chips and Science Act passed a law that's helping bring semiconductor and AI related manufacturing back to US soil. If those incentives are rolled back, do you think companies would continue to invest in domestic manufacturing or what they move those operations overseas?

The Honorable David Turk:

I think Dr. Schmidt described what happened unfortunately a decade, two decades ago when we let those manufacturing facilities slip out of our hands and go to other countries and the CHIPS and Science Act was Congress working with the administration to step up and say, we need to bring that back and it's going to take some upfront capital. It's a perfectly appropriate role for the government to say, this is a critical technology. We're going to invest. We're going to encourage and send a bunch of private sector investment to have those chips manufactured here in the US. So the short answer to your question is if we were to some reason slow down the CHIPS act or rescind that funding, we're going to be right back where we were, which is not where we need to be.

Rep. Mark Veasey (D-TX):

Damn, if for some reason we didn't fully implement CHIPS Act in this area, what would that mean for America competitively, particularly when we start talking about what countries like China are doing.

The Honorable David Turk:

So it's not only the economic opportunities that producing the chips here have for communities across the country. There's a real national security implication, chips along with data and power and human intelligence fuels this AI revolution. We're in the midst of if you don't have those chips and you're beholden to other countries and other supply chains, that's a real vulnerability.

Rep. Mark Veasey (D-TX):

Which means China rules the world. Very scary. Mr. Chairman.

Rep. John Joyce (R-PA):

The gentleman yields. The Chair recognizes Mr. Bentz from Oregon for his five minutes of questioning.

Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-OR):

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to all of you for being here. Is there a reason that we should have a more organized approach, Mr. Wang, to the approach that we're using to try to achieve this win in artificial intelligence? And before you answer that, tell me what a win is in artificial intelligence. I know when I was reading the Oppenheimer book and Tours Cathedral and other such literature, well, more Oppenheimer, the goal was a bomb. What's our goal in AI?

Alexandr Wang:

AI is, as has been mentioned, a unique technology because it has such broad reaching implications, it can be utilized to empower our economy and enable our industries to grow. It can be used for science in accelerating scientific discovery, helping us do things such as solving fusion or finding a cure to cancer. And it can also be used as a weapon and used in military context.

Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-OR):

I know I asked you to tell me if our approach is the proper approach, and we'll get back to that in a second, but as Lincoln said, the way you get things done is to change public opinion. And the great thing about this hearing today is what we're trying to say is this is an existential issue. This is so important. We need to waive environmental rules, we need to push things aside. We need to create exemptions. We need to get past this haystack of obstacles that we created for ourselves to protect things. But it takes forever now to do anything here and we don't have forever. So what I'm really asking is make the best argument you can to America right this minute about why this is an existential, truly, absolutely necessary thing for us to set these other important things aside and it has to be more and maybe it can't be, but your best argument, I'm going to ask everybody else the same question, but go ahead.

Alexandr Wang:

If we fall behind the Chinese Communist Party, this technology will enable the CCP as well as other authoritarian regimes to utilize the technology to over time effectively take over the world. They'll be able to export their ideologies, they'll be able to utilize as a military technology to invade other countries and they'll be able to use it for effectively spreading their regime in a more broad way across the world.

Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-OR):

And so what's missing of course is you say use it. The definition of it is going to become more and more important so people actually can grasp this broad phrase of AI is so general, your turn.

Manish Bhatia:

Well, I think it is really critical that we not only maintain our leadership in terms of the algorithms and the data structure approach to being able to enable the AI applications, but absolutely the hardware, semiconductors, logic, memory, it's absolutely critical that we're able to maintain our advantage.

Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-OR):

They are critical. But what I'm trying to get at here is the public opinion has to understand why they are critical. Why It's absolutely essential that we win this race to a goal that's not as clear as I would like. Dr. Schmidt.

Eric Schmidt:

In five to 10 years, every American citizen will have the equivalent of an Einstein on their phone or in their pocket. This is an enormous increase in power for humans. What if that Einstein is a Chinese one?

Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-OR):

And I'm going to shift back to Mr. Wang for just a minute because of frankly your age as compared to those other on the panel. So if everybody is going to have Einstein available, how would you suggest to teachers that they address this in the classroom?

Alexandr Wang:

I think it's important. Frankly, I think AI will be an immense opportunity for humans and for industries to be able to leverage as a core technology. Our view is that in many ways our role, human's role will go towards supervising and managing these AI systems, these AI agents if you will, and give ourselves frankly more leverage. So I think the key for teachers and for education system is to teach people how to leverage AI systems, how to use them, how do you embrace the technology as a tool, as something that enables you to do more things, better things, more ambitious things.

Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-OR):

And that would mean that all of our teachers have to understand how to use this new tool. And I'm going to be out of time, but I was interested Mr. Turkin in the remarks he made about trying to recover and bring back to the United States manufacturing capability. I know that Micron is the only memory chip maker we have left here. And so I think the tariff concept is exactly that. To try to in some fashion, get us back to where we need to be as we watched all those different important jobs, flee now doing our best to get them back. And the real question is how to do it, and I'm out of time, but is certainly incredibly important. Thank you. Thank you all. I yield.

Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO):

The gentleman yields, the chair now recognizes the gentle lady from Massachusetts, Ms. Trahan.

Rep. Lori Trahan (D-MA):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Congress must lead in advancing pro-consumer, pro innovation, AI agenda, clear guardrails and regulatory certainty will fuel not hinder that innovation. So to understand what that looks like for everyday Americans, let's just start at the beginning of the AI pipeline with research and what we need to be doing to set the conditions for AI capacity. Foundational research drove breakthroughs like transistors, the internet and large language models. Our adversaries get this while federal R and D funding is being cut, the Chinese government is scaling its investments. For example, China is outspending us by more than double in fusion energy research and commercialization. Dr. Schmidt, in your testimony, you noted the importance of ramping up fusion energy research. Commonwealth Fusion is in the district that I get to represent the fusion and AI leaders that I regularly speak with, tell me how important public-private partnerships are for advancing new technology and moving towards commercialization. How important is a strong federal enterprise for domestic innovation, including infusion and an AI?

Eric Schmidt:

Commonwealth is an example of American exceptionalism, as you know, their development of these incredibly powerful batteries, sorry, magnets, excuse me. That was done in research. At MIT shows you the path. You do it at MIT, you do a spin out. It was done collaborative with MIT, with other investors. People have put billions of dollars into Commonwealth, including myself. I'm also the chairman of a competitor company on the west coast. That's how the American system works. The current 15% indirect cost issue is hurting American science and it needs to be addressed. If there are issues in specific programs, do it surgically. The damage that is being done to American research broadly speaking will harm the country for the next 50 years. This is the time to reverse this.

Rep. Lori Trahan (D-MA):

Your answer is exactly why the federal government must bolster and not squander its research capacity. Whether it's pushing away international researchers or gutting science agencies like NIH or the National Science Foundation undermining research. The first step in the AI pipeline threatens our ability to win, which I believe we all want to do. I'd like to turn to AI development, which depends on computer chips. In 2022, Congress passed the Chips and Science Act to bring chip production back home. China sees the same strategic value and is implementing a massive state-sponsored campaign to strengthen its semiconductor supply chain. Mr. Bhatia companies like Micron have received billions through the CHIPS Act to expand chip factories in the United States. How important is it that the federal government fully implement the CHIPS Act to ensure that Micron and other firms are able to bolster their domestic manufacturing capabilities?

Manish Bhatia:

Thank you, Congresswoman. And you're right that our Asian competitors do have large cost gaps, cost deltas versus our operations here in the United States, 35 to 45% range depending on where in Asia. And those countries are also incentivizing their domestic companies, which creates competitive disadvantages for the US companies, and it's absolutely essential that we are able to extend and expand the investment tax credits that were passed as part of that legislation so that the spring of new facilities that have started can continue in bloom over the next decade.

Rep. Lori Trahan (D-MA):

Thank you. Your President, Trump, says he wants to revive American manufacturing, but he is gutting the CHIPS program office and floating repeal of the CHIPS Act altogether, and that just doesn't add up. Finally, on AI deployment to benefit from AI, people need protection. AI isn't flawless. It can mislead, it can make false predictions, it can expose personal data. Yet yes, we must beat China, but we don't need to become China. America must lead with its values, especially privacy. Our tech laws should reflect that. Mr. Wang, in your testimony, you affirm the need for effective AI guardrails. This committee has repeatedly come close to passing a federal privacy standard based on data minimization and transparency. How important are privacy protections? As a guardrail for AI.

Alexandr Wang:

We strongly support Congress's desire to get data privacy legislation done. Ultimately, what we find critically important is that, again, I've mentioned this a few times, that we have one federal framework so that we don't have a patchwork of various frameworks throughout the country.

Rep. Lori Trahan (D-MA):

Yep. This committee has a lot of work to do. Thank you so much for your testimony.

Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO):

The general lady yields the Chair now recognizes the gentle lady from Iowa. Ms. Miller-Meeks.

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IO):

Thank you very much to the Chair and Ranking Member for holding this extremely important hearing on AI energy and global competitiveness. Iowa's first district has become an important contributor to our nation's AI infrastructure. In February, Cedar Rapids announced its largest economic development investment in the city's history, a $750 million partnership between the city, Alliant Energy and QTS to build a major data center campus. The project will bring hundreds of construction jobs and high-tech positions while featuring innovative water-free cooling systems that address resource concerns. It's also home to Azure's largest supercomputers, which Microsoft built for OpenAI to train breakthrough AI models. This cutting net infrastructure in our state's heartland demonstrates how communities beyond traditional tech hubs can play vital roles in advancing AI innovation. As we examine these technologies, I'm particularly interested in how we ensure reliable power generation for these high-demand facilities.

Iowa's diverse energy portfolio positions us well, but we need significant additional generation capacity nationwide to meet growing electricity demands for AI, domestic manufacturing and residential demand. I'm eager to explore how we maintain America's energy competitive edge, and especially against China's targeted effort to become the global AI leader by 2030. The decisions that we make today about regulation infrastructure will determine whether the United States maintains its leadership position and how critical this is. As has been mentioned earlier, Mr. Wang, I was impressed by MIT's AI innovation when I visited there a few years ago, but concerned to learn about the CCPs whole of government approach to accelerating Chinese AI capabilities. With the recent emergence of models like DeepSeek, how would you characterize our current competitive position against China, specifically in the areas of data? And I think you've answered this, partly computing algorithms and workforce development.

Alexandr Wang:

It's an important question and AI really does boil down to its ingredients. And these ingredients are the ones that you referenced, computational power, data, algorithms, and ultimately the workforce that we have to support it. When it comes to computational power, we are still ahead as a country, but we have to be very diligent to ensure that we stay ahead. We're lucky that the leading chips in the world are Nvidia chips, some of the chips from Micron and others, which are the forefront of the industry and the envy of the world. But we need to maintain those leads and we need to think deeply about how we do that. When it comes to algorithmic, the algorithms, I would actually say we're probably on par at this point with China. We used to have a meaningful lead, most of the most innovative algorithms are American innovations, but they've been very quickly replicated and at this point it's not clear that we have a lead when it comes to data.

This is where China has an immeasurable lead. They've invested in it for years, nearly a decade of investment into datasets to fuel their AI development. This started with their global surveillance programs and when they instituted large scale AI for facial recognition and other technologies throughout the country and has continued today, we need to figure out as a country, how we achieve data dominance and how we can do that both in the public sector as well as across the private sector. And then lastly on the workforce. This is an important, we as a country, again, the workforce is what fuels every component of these sets of innovation. So we need to ensure that we as a country are setting up the right programs to empower the AI workforce of tomorrow.

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IO):

Thank you, Mr. Bhatia. In your testimony you stated that the US is not on track to keep pace with projected energy demand and that unless the US makes substantial policy shifts access to affordable and reliable power will begin constraining American's manufacturing Renaissance. During our hearing with the nation's grid operators last month, they expressed similar concerns. Your testimony specifically highlighted the Boardman to Hemingway transmission line project that's faced nearly 20 years of permitting delays. Can you elaborate on how these permitting challenges directly impact Microns expansion plans and competitiveness to China's ability to rapidly deploy energy infrastructure?

Manish Bhatia:

Thank you, Congresswoman. The Boardman to Hemingway line is just an example. It's a project that is I think 300 miles long and has been on the drawing board for almost 20 years now. And it's, we were joking earlier that it's approaching its 21st birthday almost in terms of when it was proposed until today and still hundreds of millions of dollars spent on permitting. It's a project that does span three different states to be able to connect transmission in the Pacific Northwest and because of those kinds of regulations between the different states as well as federal oversight issues and regulations, we've not been able to see it even get started. And that's just one example of I'm sure many, many other examples of projects which really are needed to be able to bring the grid resiliency that others on the panel have talked about and that I've called for as well.

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IO):

Thank you. I have a question for Dr. Schmidt on Fusion, but I'm out of time so I will submit it for the record if you could please answer it, but I hadn't heard Fusion mentioned, so I wanted to get that in. Thank you. I yield back.

Rep. John Joyce (R-PA):

The gentle lady yields. The chair now recognizes the gentle lady from New York, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

Thank you Mr. Chair and thank you to our witnesses for joining us today and offering your testimony. The crux of what we're here to discuss today is where a lot of where the rubber meets the road when it comes to AI and how this actually manifests in the world and the real problems that we're going to have to square and solve, particularly as it comes to energy and energy consumption. Mr. Schmidt, Dr. Schmidt, you've written in the past about the energy consumption of AI. You mentioned in this article here on Project Syndicate that AI guzzles electricity, a single ChatGPT query requires 10 times as much as a conventional web search. And in your opening statement today, you said something very fascinating and compelling, I think about the actual scale of the energy consumption that we are confronting here. When you talked about gigawatts and nuclear facilities, could you repeat that for me very quickly?

Eric Schmidt:

So some math here is, and thank you, congresswoman. The typical data center, sorry, the typical nuclear power plant is one gigawatt. We have roughly 90 of them. We're talking about 90 gigawatts in the next three to five years needed in America to maintain this leadership.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

90 gigawatts for the AI data centers?

Eric Schmidt:

For the United States. And the reason I wanted to emphasize this is one, this is insane in terms of a build, why do we need it? Because we're going from the ChatGPT that you know, which is language to language to reasoning systems that do thousands and thousands. What they do is called reinforcement learning. They go back and forth and back and forth. They're not as efficient as our brains and they discover new things.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

And I completely hear you on the scale of the technology that we're dealing with here and going back to that 90 gigawatt number, that's the equivalent of to what you mentioned here, 90 nuclear power plants just that we would be developing or the equivalent of that just for AI data centers alone. And of course we're not talking about building 90 nuclear power plants. We're talking about building that capacity, which before us here today to be frank and with the current administration is fossil fuel infrastructure. Of course, we've talked about mixed energy loads, but with the investments and what we are seeing in terms of what is getting defunded and what is getting funded and what is being advocated for, this is largely fossil fuel infrastructure and particularly methane methane being 28 times more potent in contributing to the climate crisis than even traditional CO2. But what we're also seeing is that in the administration's moves to massively invest in AI, we've also seen the fossil fuel market be tightly associated with this.

In fact, the day after Trump announced his $500 billion AI Stargate Initiative, gas prices in the market went up 5.3%, and after the DeepSeek announcement from China, which announced that they consume 50 to 75% less energy, gas prices fell 8%. And so increasingly we are seeing fossil fuel market speculation seeming to start to intertwine with the development of the AI industry. And this has a problem for working people and this is the part that we need to square in New York. Con Edison bills, that's our local energy provider are up for some families are paying $1,200 a month to pay their energy bill and we're here talking about massive energy investments not to lower their bills, but for ultimately infrastructure that's privately owned. Mr. Turk, if a utility invests in a new substation so that gas generation for an AI data center can connect to the grid, will that utility typically pass those costs on via its electrical rates?

The Honorable David Turk:

Well, I think you've hit the nail on the head here. We don't just need new electrons for AI, we need them for consumers, and we need to have downward pressure on prices, not the opposite. And so that's what we need to keep our eye on the ball including and especially with the IRA tax credits, what we're talking about is average households paying $200 more per year if those tax credits were repealed for citizens in New York, it's $400 per year more.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

But at the core of the question without, if we currently go on this path, the increases in that energy consumption from AI get passed on.

The Honorable David Turk:

That's exactly right. It's a competitive environment. We have increasing demand if we don't have a range of resources, especially solar and storage, which are the cheapest resources to bring on quickly right now in our country, if we increase the prices of that, everyone's going to feel it. And consumers in part.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

And fossil fuel prices are certainly more volatile than renewables.

The Honorable David Turk:

That's right. That's right.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

Thank you very much.

Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO):

The gentle lady yields the Chair now recognizes the gentle lady from Florida, Ms. Lee.

Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Wang, I would like to go back to your testimony of earlier today specifically toward the end where one of the things that you touched on was how we as Congress might empower and utilize NIST to help us in our promotion of artificial intelligence. One of the things that you mentioned is that NIST needs more resources to be able to complete relevant measurement science such as standards and frameworks. Would you tell us a little bit more about, elaborate on those standards and frameworks and what you think NIST could be doing that would be constructive?

Alexandr Wang:

Ultimately, as AI develops as a technology, it's very important that we have what we call test and ion regime that we're able to both test and evaluate the performance of these AI systems, understand their limitations as well as do as other of the panelists have mentioned, do extensive red teaming on these AI systems understand how an adversary would be able to utilize AI or hack into our AI systems to harm us. This work is incredibly important and serves as a foundation that we can use to export American AI standards globally, and this is really the strategic move for America, which is how do we ensure that the way that we think about AI both embedded with our values and our democratic values as well as how we think AI should be developed globally is as exported as broadly as possible throughout the world. We saw I think in the last few generations of technology, the Chinese Communist Party actually be quite strategic on this, the Belt and road initiatives, their use of Huawei technology for 5G, they've in many recent developments, major developments in advanced technology, they focus on exporting their technology and making sure that Chinese technology is the global standard.

We need to do the opposite with AI and the beauty of the situation that we're currently in is that many, many countries, Japan, France, the uk, India, have all established AI safety institutes that are all looking towards the testing that we're doing in the United States and the standards that we're enforcing in the United States for them to institute their own standards.

Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL):

If we are able to develop and then effectively export that measurement science. Would you elaborate on how it is that you think that will help promote democratic values and similarly, if we fail to do so, what do you anticipate that we will see if we do not create those standards and share them globally?

Alexandr Wang:

Ultimately, just as a simple example, let's say that we institute as part of our test and evaluation systems, certain guardrails around factuality, so the AI systems or certain guardrails around whether or not the AI could be used to create bio weapons or whatnot that would totally eliminate certain classes of risks of a CCP model being used globally to perpetuate their ideologies or perpetuate instability globally. We have an immense ability to ensure that the American view of AI, which is a democratic technology that can be utilized by the people, for the people to ultimately empower industries, that is how the entire world views the technology and it's a fixed window of opportunity. We will not have this opportunity forever. At some point, all of the other countries will start instituting their own AI standards and so we need to act quickly.

Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL):

One of the things that you mentioned is your assessment that NIST would benefit from having additional resources from Congress in order to be able to undertake this activity. Do you have a perspective on how that looks, whether it is dollars, whether it is people, if there's a certain type of workforce they require? Do you have any perspective on how we could better equip NIST to be ready to do this?

Alexandr Wang:

Yes, I think all of the above are important. I think ensuring that they have the dollars, ensuring that they have the headcount, and one of the things that I think is very critical is that they're able to bring in and leverage cutting edge AI talent as a part of NIST to help define these standards globally because these are very advanced technical questions that need to be answered, but ones that will have immense benefit to America and our economy long to the future if we succeed.

Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO):

The general lady yields. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Massachusetts. Mr. Auchincloss.

Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA):

Thank you Chairman, Dr. Schmidt, it's good to see you again. You had come and spoken to the select committee on China and you were elucidating then and I've enjoyed hearing your testimony today as well. I was hoping you could tell the committee a little bit about a famous Google paper in 2017 called Attention is All You Need Now. You were no longer executive chairman at that point, but you had been stewarding the company for the 15 years before that and I'm sure is well aware of how that publication came to be. Can you give us a minute backstory?

Eric Schmidt:

I was in fact still executive chairman and the interesting thing about that paper is when it came out, I didn't even notice it shows you asleep at the wheel or something. The six authors all became hugely famous because they came up with a way of building scalable intelligence before that the RNN and CNN, not media, CNN, the convolutional neural network architectures were slow and the attention is all you need allowed you to essentially devolve the computation into subdivided things which could scale infinitely. The transformer paper and the T in GPT is transformer is the underlying architecture that has enabled this explosion.

Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA):

Am I right? That transformer architecture in the 2010s really came, became coherent around the problem of natural language translation?

Eric Schmidt:

Not really. The transformer architecture was essentially a refactoring of the technologies of the time into a more scalable architecture, specifically that you could have federated computing, you'd have lots of different computers doing things at the same time. It's the easiest way to explain it and it was a real breakthrough. They'll ultimately win the equivalent of Nobel prizes for it.

Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA):

Well, I was doing some research about what's been called the Transformer eight, the eight authors of that publication, and they're almost like the PayPal mafia of AI. I mean what they've gone on to do is remarkable. Here's what else is remarkable. Of those eight, seven are immigrants and the eighth is the grandson of refugees who came to the United States fleeing persecution. In fact, two thirds of top AI startups are founded by immigrants and most PhD level AI talent in the United States is foreign born. Dr. Schmidt, can you describe the impact of immigration on America's AI competitiveness?

Eric Schmidt:

I was in a conversation last week in London where people were talking about people leaving the United States AI companies to move to London because they couldn't work here anymore. That is insane. It's so counter to American national security. It's like crazy. From my perspective, the most important thing American can do is look for high skills immigration to describe how hard this stuff is. These are PhDs in math. I have no idea what they're doing and they're inventing these incredible algorithms. We need all of them in America, every single one of them, physics, chemistry, you name it, we need them all.

Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA):

And yet the Trump administration is currently eroding due process for immigrants in this country. Whether they have green cards or student visas, they are deporting students. They are creating a climate of fear and anxiety on some of our best campuses. Go ahead, sir.

Eric Schmidt:

It's actually worse. People are being thrown out of the universities that are doing AI research. Universities have shut down their hiring pipeline and they ned AI professors and the people will otherwise go to industry, so the damage being done to the universities is really, really profound. It's very, very important that we understand that American leadership in research, which you understand very well from where you are, is the cornerstone of our future. We will not get there. Meanwhile, China is pouring an enormous amount of money into the same groups.

Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA):

Do you think if the Trump posture towards immigrants, student immigrants in particular universities more broadly, if that persists, can America beat China and AI?

Eric Schmidt:

No. In fact, when you all appointed me to be the chairman of the National Security Committee on Commission on AI, and we looked at this very carefully, what was interesting is that Chinese born contributors were often part of the key papers. They were not the lead author, but they were part of it. If you get rid of those people and in particular they go to China, the leadership literally moves. I'd much rather have them be here and people say, well, they're criminals. They're not criminals. They want to be in the United States. If they are criminals, arrest them.

Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA):

They're Americans by choice. Not only is Donald Trump providing a massive opening for China with his xenophobic immigration policy, he's also providing that massive opening for China with his trade wars that's bringing Europe and China closer together. With that, I yield back. Mr. Chairman.

Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO):

The gentleman yields. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California. Mr. Obernolte.

Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-CA):

Thank you very much Mr. Chairman, and I'd like to thank Chairman Guthrie and the Energy and Commerce Committee for having this hearing on a topic that's very close to my heart and something I think is of immense national consequence to our economy and our country. Mr. Wang, it's great to see you again. In your testimony, you were talking about the steps that must be taken to ensure US continued leadership in AI and I was very thankful that you had some very specific asks of Congress and the administration and one of those was that we adopt a regulatory framework that's sector specific and use case based, and I wanted to ask you, could you elaborate a little bit on what you mean by that and how we would go about enacting it?

Alexandr Wang:

Yeah, so ultimately what we need as a country is to ensure that from a technology development standpoint that we do not slow down. We need to ensure that AI as a technology moves forward as quickly as possible, and that includes embracing the technology and ensuring that we have room to innovate. But the application of that technology towards certain sectors or certain specific use cases in the economy are areas where I think there probably needs to be some level of regulation or at least some level of guardrails in place. These could be industries like the medical industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the financial services industry and others industries that already have some degree of regulation to protect consumers and protect Americans. In many cases, we can utilize those same provisions of those same regulations, and then there might be some cases where there's some gaps.

Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-CA):

Right? The artificial intelligence task force in the house issued a report in December that made exactly that same recommendation, and I think the exact finding was that we regulate tools, outcomes, not tools, and AI is a very powerful tool, but is a tool. If we focus our regulation on outcomes, then we can capture all the different uses of the tool. You also talked about the need for a single federal standard for regulation, and Congressman Dunn was on the way to asking you about that and unfortunately ran out of time, so I wanted to give you a little bit of space to explain what you meant by that.

Alexandr Wang:

Yeah, so as an AI company, and I think what we ultimately want as a country is to ensure that our industry can continue developing advanced AI systems and continue driving American leadership. The worst case scenario for us is actually that there are 50 different, every state adopts a different regulatory standard and we have to operationally comply with 50 different regulatory standards. I mean, it quickly becomes impossible, especially as you consider in a lot of cases the way that we develop ai as we develop one large model and then we start applying that model in all sorts of different industries and use cases and jurisdictions, and so we need as an industry and as a country, one clear federal standard, whatever it may be, but we need clarity as to one federal standard and have preemption to prevent this outcome where you have 50 50 different standards. Just to put a finer point on this, we do not want our American company spending all their time figuring out how to comply with every state standards, whereas the Chinese models and the Chinese companies will just race ahead on innovation.

Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-CA):

Right? That's another conclusion that we completely agree with you. The task force report, we had a whole chapter on this issue, and let me just point out the fact that since then, just in the last couple of months, we have at last count 958 bills pending in state legislatures across the country on the topic of AI regulation, and I'm sure it's going to grow to be several thousand just in this year if we allow this regulatory landscape that complicated to exist. I actually think that scale is probably well suited to that because you've got the legal sophistication to deal with that, but who does not have that sophistication? Are two people at Caltech see what I did there? Not MIT Caltech try to start the next scale, so I think we definitely, we have a limited amount of legislative runway to be able to get that problem solved before the states get too far ahead. And one last question for you, Mr. Wang. You had mentioned the need to establish a national AI data reserve. Could you talk a little bit about why that's so important?

Alexandr Wang:

Ultimately, national security is the responsibility of the government and our government's data, particularly our DODs data and our data relating to national security is so vital and valuable to ensuring that our AI systems are able to defend our country, defend our men and women, and ultimately ensure national security broadly speaking. So the necessity of the national AI data reserve is so that in five to 10 years we're not sitting here seeing how advanced the Chinese systems for defense and intelligence and cyber warfare and other systems are because they have an integrated data approach versus our systems, which would be dramatically behind.

Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-CA):

Well, thank you very much for your testimony. Sorry I didn't get to the other witnesses. I have a million questions. We'll submit that for the record. I yield back.

Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO):

The gentleman yields the Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Carter.

Rep. Troy Carter (D-LA):

Thank you Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for joining us today. I'm glad we're discussing the need to upgrade our infrastructure for the 21st century economy and provide for all Americans access to cutting edge technologies championed by our witnesses here. In January, Louisiana became the first state to secure federal approved for deploying 1.3 billion in broadband equity access and deployment, otherwise known as BEAD funding. This achievement highlights the bipartisan nature of Louisiana's commitment to universal connectivity and to set standards for states regarding broadband access. The state's BEAD rollout plan began under the Democratic governor John Bell Edwards and was completed under Republican governor Jeff Landry, who called it a generational investment that will create thousands of jobs, drive billions of dollars in economic growth and transform Louisiana's communities in all 64 parishes. The state's plan will connect approximately 140,000 locations to high speed internet through funding awarded to 20 internet service providers with nearly 70% of the funds awarded to Louisiana companies.

More than 90,000 of these locations were set to transition from zero connectivity to future-proof broadband fiber. Although these broadband investments will drive significant economic growth for the state, creating approximately 10,000 new jobs and generating an estimated two to $3 billion in new revenue for Louisiana companies. However, since the Trump administration took office just a week after Louisiana received approval, its final approval to move forward on its proposal, the Commerce Department has withheld final funding to their approval that would've otherwise had shovels in the ground, installing high-speed broadband infrastructure today, not aspirational, but now the unexpected delay has stalled progress frozen investments made by small internet service providers and contractors and left rural communities still waiting on the promise of broadband access. Just recently, Meta announced that they were building a roughly 10 billion data center in rural Richland Parish in Louisiana, an area that would have benefited from the states broadband rollout.

In fact, over 600 households within a 10 mile circumference of the new meta facility would be connected via BEAD. We also expect that around the data center to grow as facility brings in hundreds of workers including skilled technical specialists. The delays around BEAD rollout mean that these workers for the $10 billion advanced data center may lack high speed broadband at home threatening yet another huge investment in my home state, the freeze and BEAD funds. Yet another example of how the Trump administration has shown chaos and uncertainty for businesses trying to make major investments in technology and energy on top of the past week of economic turmoil and worldwide market crashes. This is unacceptable, Mr. Bhatia? It's close enough. How important is quality of life for your workers when you are looking to grow your operations in new areas? Would considering making major investments in the area where your workers are and their families lack access to the internet be a major factor?

Manish Bhatia:

Absolutely. We would like to ensure that we have a workforce that is highly skilled, highly trained, and all the jobs that we're creating with our projects, 11,000 direct jobs at Micron, 80,000 direct and indirect jobs, those all should be high paying jobs, which will allow people to have a high standard of living, and we think that's an important element to ensure our technology leadership as well as our manufacturing efficiency.

Rep. Troy Carter (D-LA):

Thank you, Mr. Wang. In your testimony you recommended that the federal government put policies in place to let the AI workforce thrive in America. Would you agree that we're holding back our future workforce by allowing children to grow up in an America without access to high speed broadband internet?

Alexandr Wang:

I certainly think that the ability for our children and future workforce to embrace AI technologies and other technology is going to be absolutely critical to the future development of our country. So ultimately, yes, I think we need to ensure that.

Rep. Troy Carter (D-LA):

Thank you. I've got four seconds real quickly, Mr. Turk. Our American grid is now facing an unprecedented surge in electrical electricity demand. How has the Trump administration's blanket refusal to permit large scale offshore wind projects impacted our country's ability to meet this new demand.

The Honorable David Turk:

So it's another tool in the tool belt. Why take it off? It's incredibly important along with other sources of power, and I think your point more broadly about infrastructure funding, you need predictability and you need certainty. You don't need chaos.

Rep. Troy Carter (D-LA):

Thank you very much. My time has ended, I yield back. Thank you.

Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO):

The gentleman yields the Chair now recognizes the gentle lady from North Dakota. Ms. Fedorchack.

Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-ND):

Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for being here. I've spent an interesting hearing. Dr. Schmidt, you said you think the AI, the importance of AI and the challenges we face has been under hyped. I agree with you. I also think that the challenges that our electric grid in this country face have also been under hyped. The truth of the matter is we are underpowered today, and that doesn't even take into consideration the demands that the AI industry brings or the need and the urgency for us to meet that demand. So knowing that, would you all agree that one of the first things we should be doing is stopping retiring of existing resources that are connected to the grid? And I'll just go down the line, Mr. Turk, real quickly, I don't need a one minute answer, yes or no. We should stop retiring existing resources if there's still somewhat economic

The Honorable David Turk:

Yes, but we do need to keep an eye on other goals including climate, and we need to make sure we..

Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-ND):

Thank you Dr. Schmidt?

Eric Schmidt:

Yes.

Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-ND):

Okay. Mr. Wang?

Alexandr Wang:

Yes.

Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-ND):

Mr. Bhatia?

Manish Bhatia:

All of the above.

Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-ND):

Excellent. Thank you. I think it's not, and yes, but it is. Yes. We need to stop retiring. This is an urgent need. Everyone has said it's a national security issue. All resources take time to get on the grid, and so when we don't even have enough to meet demand today, then we most certainly, and we have growing demand, we most certainly should all be able to agree in a bipartisan manner that we should keep whatever we can right now and then go from there because technology evolve and they will continue to evolve. Mr. Turk, you had said earlier that you think that you'd said that solar and wind are the cheapest resources to bring onto the grid. Can you elaborate? What do you include in that calculation?

The Honorable David Turk:

Yeah, so I look not only at the levelized cost, but I look at what's actually being brought into our grid right now driven by economics. And so 93%, our independent energy information administration is saying 93% of the new power brought on this year will be solar and storage and wind.

Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-ND):

Okay, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's coming on because it's the cheapest. Does your calculation include the cost of transmission to bring that online?

The Honorable David Turk:

Well, this is why we need to have, and I know you're an expert in this, and thank you for your leadership in particular with your previous job. We need to have the whole grid. We need to be thinking about reconductoring, we need to be thinking about grid enhancing technologies. We need to be thinking about transmission too. We need about think about it holistically and systemically.

Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-ND):

Exactly. And I support Getz a hundred percent. It's not the a hundred percent solution though, and it should not be overstated because I think a lot of people who don't understand this hear things like that and think there are simple solutions when really there are far more complicated. And the truth of the matter is when you consider solar and wind as being the cheapest, the cost of the transmission is not included in that calculation, nor is the cost of all the backup generation that's needed to provide power when solar and wind aren't available. Those have to be included in our calculations when we're talking about costs because the people who pay for that, they notice that those aren't the cheapest things because it's all included in their bill. Nobody else soaks up those costs, but the final customers who pay the bill, I had like to ask one more question of all of you.

So I think that in an urgent time like this, it's more important than ever that the signals that this federal government sends through its policies provide clear messages and clear instruction about what we need the most. We had all the grid operators here a week ago to the person they all said, what they need now is dispatchable power, knowing that is it reasonable for the federal government to continue to incentivize resources that are not dispatchable, and I'll start down here at the end. Should we be sending that signal? What we need is dispatchable. Why are we sending strong signals that you should bring on things that aren't dispatchable through tax policy?

Manish Bhatia:

I think that I mentioned all of the above earlier. I think that we need to think about technologies that can and investing in technologies that will be able to contribute longer term. We shouldn't take away from that. I mentioned in my prepared remarks some nuclear technologies that we stopped investing in that probably looks today to be shortsighted, but at the same time, we need to be focusing on technologies, on the sources of energy that can support the demand today.

Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-ND):

Thank you, Mr. Wang?

Alexandr Wang:

I'm not an energy expert, an AI expert, so probably not the best answer to this.

Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-ND):

Okay, Dr. Schmidt?

Eric Schmidt:

If you take all of the subsidies away of oil and gas and all the ones around renewables, you get a different calculation. Given we have the oil and gas subsidies, I think it's fine to have the renewable subsidies. Key thing is solve the storage problem, which I think has largely been solved. That creates dispatchability.

Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-ND):

Thank you. I yield back.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

The gentle lady yields back. The chair recognizes gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Menendez for five minutes.

Rep. Robert Menendez (D-NJ):

Thank you Chairman Guthrie for holding this hearing this morning, afternoon. I guess. Now, Dr. Schmidt, in your testimony, you state that securing America's energy future requires bold, strategic federal action and investment. One example highlighted by both you and Mr. Turk is the potential for fusion energy, which is generally supported by both Democrats and Republicans. Dr. Schmidt, can you briefly describe the potential fusion has for the future of our domestic energy production?

Eric Schmidt:

Fusion is different from fission. It's a very different process. It's the technology that's inside our sun. There are two main approaches. One is essentially it's called a tomac. You essentially create a plasma that floats. The plasma is so hot, you have to control it using magnets and AI to hold it, otherwise the walls would melt. There are a number of companies in America that are using that approach. There's an alternative approach, which is a pulse fusion. This was funded initially through something called nif in Livermore way back when, and it looks like the pulse. And what you do is you create a magnetic field which causes a collapse that causes electricity, and the electricity generated is greater than the electricity to cause the pulse. It's called Q greater than one. The timeline of these things is demonstration for a number of these companies by roughly 2030. If you make some assumptions about the number of electricians and the scale of the problem, and the devices are typically 400 megawatts. So think of the number of 400 wat megawatt power sources, and you sort of take the current power source, coal power, basically natural gas, whatever, and you put this fusion thing in it. That's the model. The problem is when I look at the timeframe, you're not until 2040 to 2045 when you have abundant fusion.

Rep. Robert Menendez (D-NJ):

Right, to get onto the grid and make it part of our daily life.

Eric Schmidt:

Having said that, this is an area where America will lead. It should be a source of great pride for America to lead in this for the world.

Rep. Robert Menendez (D-NJ):

I agree with you. And how important is federal funding specifically for the US National Laboratories Program to advancing new technologies?

Eric Schmidt:

The DOE work in this is fundamental true of the labs and all of the stuff I'm talking about. The people that I've hired in my company are all coming out of the labs. Thank God.

Rep. Robert Menendez (D-NJ):

And thank you for that. And so just yes or no, if this program were to see its funding cutter significantly reduce, would that hinder our ability to harness this new technology?

Eric Schmidt:

It would be horrific. We need much more funding in these areas.

Rep. Robert Menendez (D-NJ):

See, I agree with you, but last month out of space signs a technology committee, hearing leaders from the Department of Energy sound, the alarms about tens of millions of dollars that are crucial to research development being put on hold because of President Trump's funding freezes across the federal government. Dr. Schmidt, your testimony, you mentioned the need to dramatically increase funding for energy sector cybersecurity. Dr. Schmidt, again, just yes or no. Should the federal government take the lead on having a strategy to combat cyber attacks to our critical infrastructure?

Eric Schmidt:

It has to.

Rep. Robert Menendez (D-NJ):

Yeah, I agree. But President Trump recently signed an executive order that put states and municipalities at the forefront of our nation's cyber attack response process instead of the federal government weakening federal investment and disaster preparedness and creating a patchwork plan for attacks to our critical infrastructure across the country. Dr. Sprint, yes or no? Does that seem like a wise strategy?

Eric Schmidt:

It's not a good idea. Remember that we have an incredible cyberforce in America under the Pentagon and the National Security Agency. I do a lot of military work. They're phenomenal.

Rep. Robert Menendez (D-NJ):

I agree with you, and their work should be celebrated, and it should sit at the federal government, not state and municipalities. I'm a complete agreement with you, Mr. Wang, and your testimony you call for the establishment of a National AI data reserve. Your testimony also notes that the right regulatory framework maximizes innovation while still creating proper guardrails. Mr. Wang, yes or no? Should guardrails be placed on the government's collection of sensitive data?

Alexandr Wang:

Yes.

Rep. Robert Menendez (D-NJ):

Yeah, I agree. But here's the thing, right? So the Trump administration is currently weaponizing data that they have within their control, including family sensitive personal information that's collected by HUD and IRS to target immigrants mixed as families, right? So I agree that having the data is the power that we will be able to use in terms of AI and the federal government having a reserve or a collection of data is how we fully harness AI. But this administration's undermining our belief and trust in the federal government's ability to properly hold data and not use it and weaponize it, which this administration is this challenge. This is my challenge with Republicans right now is that they are seeing all this stuff happen in real time, right? Dr. Schmidt, you've talked about in all the above approach to energy production, but they want to roll back investments in renewable energy and they sit here every week and make it seem like it's business as usual. You are their witnesses and you're telling them, we need a reverse course on what this administration is doing, and they remain silent week after week. And that is the challenge. And by the way, people have gone over on another side. I'm three seconds over, Mr. Carter, three seconds. But this is something you all need to be accountable to the American..

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Time has expired, and the gentleman from Georgia is now recognized.

Rep. Earl Carter (R-GA):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank y'all for being here, and thank you, Mr. Chairman for holding this very important meeting. Artificial intelligence is transforming every aspect of our economy and our society, as we well know, from energy and communications to national security and healthcare, AI is both presents extraordinary opportunities. I am very interested in healthcare and chair of the health subcommittee, so I want to give you an example. HeartFlow. HeartFlow is a company that is applying artificial intelligence to transform the diagnosis and treatment of coronary artery disease, which kills one in five Americans. This is significant. Using a standard CT scan of the heart, HeartFlow's, algorithms can determine blood pressure and flow in the coronary arteries, allowing physicians to determine the severity of disease and whether invasive treatment is needed. In fact, HeartFlow's technology has proven to decrease the rate of heart attacks and save the Medicare program more than $3,100 per patient, per patient. Our job as lawmakers is to make sure the US continues to lead in AI innovation while protecting American values like data privacy, reliable infrastructure, and fair competition. Dr. Schmidt, I want to ask you, startups play a crucial role. We all know that they play a crucial role in driving innovation and technology ecosystem. How can we avoid creating regulatory structures that only large companies with extensive legal teams and the lobbying power can navigate?

Eric Schmidt:

I agree with the premise of your question, sir. The innovation that's occurring in startups is phenomenal. You see completely new techniques using AI as typical example would be cancer scoring where you have a bunch of things. I'm part of the Mayo Clinic board and so forth, and they have, they're spinning out startups to do precisely this. So it can be done. We need to have the entire ecosystem of venture capital and so forth behind the image that you described.

Rep. Earl Carter (R-GA):

Exactly, and not just where the bigger companies are, the ones who are doing this.

Eric Schmidt:

And may I add that some of that is actually the data problem that Mr. Wang keeps talking about. Many of the startups cannot get the data that they need for various regulatory reasons. A simple example would be that if you had opt out of privacy things for healthcare that people could for research, that you could have research pools, then you could accelerate that. There's a whole bunch of approaches there that are reasonable trade-offs.

Rep. Earl Carter (R-GA):

Okay. Let's talk about the role that AI is going to play in developing new treatments and cures, and we know that's going to be the case. How should lawmakers be thinking about integrating AI tools into HHS and CMS and FDA to create a more efficient process, like quicker drug approvals?

Eric Schmidt:

Well, the biggest problem with drugs is the phase three trial cost and the timing.

Rep. Earl Carter (R-GA):

Exactly.

Eric Schmidt:

I'm involved with a startup that has a new approach using AI to simplify that. We'll see if my startup is successful or not. The current model is static and unchanging. It's not informed by data, a simple regulatory change to allow better analytics around how you prove that. The thing is phase three trial would deliver drug in years ahead of time and years is lives ahead of time.

Rep. Earl Carter (R-GA):

We all understand this could be a great benefit. I mean, this could be a game changer with diagnosing, with making sure that we're doing the right treatments. AI in healthcare is going to be phenomenal. I'm very optimistic about that. But it's also going to have some downfalls and some things that are dangerous that we need to really guard against. But we've heard a lot of promise about how it can cut costs and how it can increase efficiency within the federal government, especially in some of the organizations like HHS. How should regulators think about contracting with innovators to integrate AI into the regulatory and oversight functions that we have, particularly in Congress?

Eric Schmidt:

I'll give you a personal answer. The federal government does a terrible job of procuring software. The federal government does quite a good job of building buying hardware. Software is not managed the same way that you manage hardware. Software is never done. It requires constant attention. The teams are constantly turning over. Instead, the federal government purchases specific contracts for specific outcomes with specific teams, doesn't work in software. In order to achieve your vision, you have to attack the software problem. The reason our government is so incredibly inefficient in my view is because it doesn't use software correctly.

Rep. Earl Carter (R-GA):

It doesn't use software correctly. Have you got an example of that?

Eric Schmidt:

Everywhere you look, I mean, if you look at what the tech companies do in terms of integrated software, there's no analog. Every aspect of data in the federal government is insecure. All of them are being attacked by the Chinese and others. The systems are so bad that people have to add layers on top to fix them, many of the underlying databases.

Rep. Earl Carter (R-GA):

My time's up. Thank you. And I yield back.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Dr. Schmidt, I know you had a hard stop. Can we do one more?

Eric Schmidt:

Yes, of course.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

We have just a handful left, but whenever you're, let me know when you need to be excused.

Eric Schmidt:

No, I appreciate that. These are very important.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

I want to make sure that everybody gets a chance to ask questions. So Mr. Mullin, you're now recognized from California. Mr. Mullin, you're recognized.

Rep. Kevin Mullin (D-CA):

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to all of our witnesses for your testimony. We've heard from our panel today that to compete on AI, we're going to need a lot more stuff, more energy, more materials, more investment, more of everything, but steel, aluminum and everything else that goes into powering data centers costs money. And we cannot win the global race on AI if American businesses can't afford the raw materials to build that infrastructure. Amid this uncertainty, the majority is considering our repeal of the IRA and the infrastructure law to landmark laws that have already leveraged hundreds of billions of dollars of private sector investment in our country's energy infrastructure. There are also reports coming out that DOE is planning to unilaterally cancel billions of dollars in grants for hydrogen hubs and long duration storage projects that have already received congressionally approved funding. Rolling back these laws that unlawfully cutting committed funding will severely undermine the trust in the federal government that stakeholders have until now, at least taken for granted. So Mr. Turk, in your time as the Deputy Secretary at DOE, you interacted with stakeholders across the energy and AI sectors. What will be the worst impacts of all of this economic and policy uncertainty, including the terrorists, which were referenced multiple times today on the investments that are underpinning AI?

The Honorable David Turk:

So it's the grants, it's the loans, and it's the tax incentives and getting rid of, or even just causing confusion about whether the grants are actually coming. And I should say on the grants, this was money that you all have already given, and this is money already obligated in some instances. And so the private sector needs to rely on the government doing what it's supposed to do, doing it professionally, doing it without any political interference. So I think what it does is it not only puts those immediate projects at risks, but it puts the credibility of the government at risk as well. And if we're going to be successful competing on AI, building out our infrastructure, doing all the other things that we need to do, we need to have credibility in the government working in partnership with the private sector.

Rep. Kevin Mullin (D-CA):

So thank you for that. And I fear there'll be serious repercussions for our energy system if cuts are made to the IRA programs. There are essential for energy as energy demand increases as part of AI, but as important as the AI races, we also have to talk about rising costs. People are paying more not only at the grocery store, but losing money in their retirement savings. But recent estimates show these tariffs are going to cost everyday Americans and additional $3,800 a year on the utility bills to meet both the AI challenge and cost challenge. It's clear that we need more energy resources and we need to get them online as soon as possible. Earlier today, you mentioned that renewables are the cheapest, quickest sources to deploy when it comes to energy. So what Mr. Turk, what does Congress need to do to unlock this development and ensure that consumers are not hit with the higher costs yet again by the Trump administration?

The Honorable David Turk:

So the good news is you all have done your jobs. Now we could use more, but you've got the tax incentives, the grants, the loans in place. What's at risk here is if those are repealed, just two provisions, the investment production tax credit, technology, neutral tax credit. If that's repealed, Americans households are paying on average $220 more per year just with those two provisions repealed, let alone the other provisions than grants and loans not going out in the way they are. So this is the worst way to keep downward pressure on prices, is to repeal these incredibly important tax incentives.

Rep. Kevin Mullin (D-CA):

Great. Thank you for that, sir. And thank you all with that. I yield back.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Thank you. Gentleman. Yields back. The chair recognizes Mr. Griffith. Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Fry. I apologize.

Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. South Carolina is experiencing a remarkable spat of economic growth from the Grand Strand of the PD. New businesses are opening, manufacturers are investing, and families are moving in. That growth is a tremendous opportunity, but it does pose some significant challenges. Yesterday, President Trump issued executive orders declaring a national energy emergency and directing swift action to boost grid reliability and cut red tape for energy projects. These steps are both timely and necessary. Power demand is rising sharply. There's a lot of contributing factors to that, but it is. And in South Carolina, nuclear power provides more than half of our electricity giving us a pretty strong foundation. But permitting delays, premature plant retirements and transmission bottlenecks threaten not only our state, but all 50 states. We need a federal policy that keeps pace with innovation, that means faster permitting, support for fuel secure generation, and a strong reliable grid.

I appreciate the testimony of all the witnesses today. My initial questions, Mr. Bhatia, appreciate your comments on the need to reshore semiconductor chip manufacturing and secure our supply chains in this country. As you noted, China controls an overwhelming majority of global capacity for critical material refining and processing and unacceptable strategic vulnerability. On our part, during our hearing with the regional grid operators, we heard that regions like New England as an example, are facing real constraints on natural gas capacity. That bottleneck is holding back the type of energy intensive investments that we need to support AI and manufacturing. So if we're going to plan for the future where we reshore significant portions of our supply chain, how important do you believe permitting reform is to infrastructure like natural gas pipelines and the like?

Manish Bhatia:

I think it's critical, and I think the cost of inaction that we've had over the last several years and continue to have is very, very high. I mean, you've heard multiple data points and testimony around the sharp spike in demand that is forecasted both because of the data centers are going to be built as well as the manufacturing in semiconductors, as well as other industry segments. And so after having many, many years where supply and demand has been mashed and stable, this spike threatens to create a dislocation that could ultimately threaten the viability of some of these projects longer term, whether those are in the data center segment or in manufacturing. And I think streamlining and working to be able to remove duplicative processes between federal and state is something that both parties can get behind and red states and blue states both can get behind trying to ensure that there is a streamlined process for critical projects to move forward.

Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC):

Sir, do you think that we can realistically meet our energy demands without those simple reforms that you talked about?

Manish Bhatia:

I'm not sure I believe that. I don't think we should try and figure that out. I think we should make sure we move forward with the permitting, and I think the permitting needs to be across transmission. It needs to be across generations, and it needs to be across all of the above sources of energy investments that we need to make.

Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC):

Thank you, Dr. Schmidt. I appreciate you staying a little bit. Your testimony laid out the strategic importance of AI in the race with China. In pretty stark terms, you mentioned that AI data centers could require up to 10 gigawatts of power each, and that we risk falling behind given what we're seeing across the country though, especially in states with business friendly environments. Can you speak to the importance of permitting reform and how it relates to our competitiveness in the AI space.

Eric Schmidt:

When you look at people who have the money, they still can't get the permits and in particular the interconnection permits that are needed to get into the grid. You can solve that problem by, for example, building your own power plant next to your own data center. But that's not particularly efficient. There are all sorts of other issues. If you look at the cost of, for example, building, I'll give you an example. TSMC built a semiconductor plant in Arizona, and by the time they were done, it cost four times more than in Taiwan. Some of that is labor, some of that is permitting, some of it is government. We are not competitive globally against our key partners and competitors with respect to costs and timing.

Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC):

Thank you for that. And you also mentioned the potential for AI to help manage and secure our grid. What role do you see for the federal government in AI enabled grid modernization, particularly for regions like mine in the southeast that are growing so rapidly?

Eric Schmidt:

So way back when before all this was well known, Google did an initiative where we looked at our data centers, which had been designed by the very best scientists according to us, in our own arrogant way. And we applied our own AI and it beat our own top people by 15%. That 15% of efficiency went straight to the bottom line. It showed me that you can take any system and use AI, do what is called predictive analytics, and you can predict loads and basically shed loads and handle it much more efficiently. That is where our grid needs to be.

Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have many more questions, but I got 15 seconds. So with that.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Will you yield to me?

Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC):

Yes.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

I just say my purpose for Mr. Menendez for asking Dr. Schmidt to be is not to come as a Republican witness and not tell us what we want to hear, but tell us what we need to hear. And I think we've all heard some things that probably don't fit within our ideology, but things we needed to hear and we can figure out work through. So time's expired, I yield back and I will recognize, apologize to Ms. Fletcher for missing her last time. But Ms. Fletcher, you're recognized for five minutes.

Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX):

Thank you so much, Chairman Guthrie. I appreciate it and I appreciate all of our witnesses for being here today and for your testimony. I think this has been a really useful and important hearing. You've given us lots to think about, and we've heard from all of you, right, that the United States is really on the brink of an AI revolution, that there are many things we need to be thinking about and just the transformational change that this is going to bring, including demand for energy. And in normal times, that should be great news for my home state of Texas where we already have a growing industry, a cluster of data centers, and we have the energy resources and the know-how to meet this sort of record high demand. But President Trump's policies are eroding the certainty and predictability that the people who run businesses and make investments need to succeed at every turn.

And this is particularly true when it comes to building our infrastructure for our energy to meet tomorrow's demand. So I want to focus a little bit on that. But Mr. Schmidt, I really appreciated your opening testimony today before the panel. And I wrote down a few things that you were speaking about that I want to follow on. And you mentioned you referenced the balance of power globally, and I think we can all acknowledge that we're in a very uncertain and shifting moment in our history. It's changing minute by minute, but you said something I thought that was really important. I want to ask you about that in the context of something you said in your written testimony, which really struck me, and I'm just quoting from your testimony. But you said the government can't win this technological race alone. We must reignite America's unique innovation power, the potent collaboration between government, private industry, and academia.

And I won't read the whole quote in the interest of time, but before I served on this committee, I served on the Science Space and Technology Committee, and I was struck at every single hearing by the witnesses. We always had a witness from academia, from the government and from industry talking about how well and efficiently and effectively they collaborated. And so I assume that you would agree with me that the disruptions that we're seeing are challenging at this moment. I assume you would agree with me that regulatory certainty is an important factor for private industry and attracting capital and to projects. Yes. And I assume you would agree that the supply chain disruptions and other kinds of things that we're experiencing are going to hurt productivity.

Eric Schmidt:

Yes.

Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX):

I also assume that you are aware, based especially on your testimony about your involvement with the Mayo Clinic, that you're aware of the cuts to academic research that are happening, whether it's through the NIH and the cost sharing for medical research or grant funding at various institutions. I keep hearing from my constituents in every industry that the increased uncertainty that we are experiencing as a result of this administration's policies, these are all new changes. This year is really an impediment. And so I just want you to elaborate with the time we have left, there's about two minutes on your vision for revitalizing the partnership that you described between industry and academia and the government. And then share your thoughts on how we can and should do that in this environment and what kinds of changes we should make to make that possible. And I know we don't have everybody in the room today, but I've heard our colleagues on both sides of the aisle listening, and I think your insights here would be really important.

Eric Schmidt:

Thank you. The van of our Bush Post World War II constructed the sort of structure that you're describing. The government is a regulator and a proponent and also does basic research funding. Universities do that research. And then venture capital takes huge risks to do this. You see this in traditional democratic areas, but also republican areas. For example, fracking was an American invention following the same product, and it produced enormous benefits to America by virtue of economics and so forth. Everybody's aware of that. We're now essentially energy independent. So the role of innovation is core. I call this innovation power. I've written about this. At some level, the future of America will be determined by the rate at which we can innovate and we have unfortunately somebody who's trying to copy us and moves very quickly. Their innovation model is more centralized, but they're plenty smart.

They have lots of resources and they're very focused and they do all the right things with respect to, of course, it's not a democracy. Getting the right smart people in the right place. They produce national championships as Alex mentioned, and they push them and they push them hard for globalization. China is now in fact overbuilding manufacturing so that they can essentially, essentially become the world's manufacturer again with huge impacts economic that everybody, you see the power of innovation right in front of you there in China. Why are we not going after that in AI? We should. We invented it. It's right in front of us. It is the core of everything. We can do new developments in physics and biology and science and so forth. The current administration's cuts the 15% indirect cost recovery. NIH costs are not consistent with that vision. If they have a problem with specific programs, do it specifically, not generally.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Thanks.

Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX):

Thank you so much. I have gone over my time. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Chairman Guthrie I yield back.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

I appreciate it very much, general lady. Mr. Evans, you're recognized for five minutes.

Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO):

Thank you Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member and of course to the witnesses for taking the time to testify today. Dr. Schmidt, my first question will be to you in your testimony, you talk a lot about China's investment in a lot of different forms of energy like wind, solar and newer technologies like fusion. The United States has made similar investments in the past several years, but I think it's also important to highlight that not all energy is necessarily created equal. And so the first question to you is, in your opinion, which nation has brought more dispatchable base load energy generation online over the last five years between China and the US?

Eric Schmidt:

It's almost certainly China.

Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO):

And then in your opinion, which nation has taken the most dispatchable base load energy offline in the last five years?

Eric Schmidt:

Almost certainly in the United States.

Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO):

Thank you, and I agree with your answers there. Obviously.

Eric Schmidt:

I should include Germany for shutting down all of his nuclear plants, which is also a mistake.

Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO):

Thank you. But yeah, I agree with your answers there. We know that China's thermal power generation has reached a record high just last year and that's driven by things like coal-fired plants, which have also reached a record high as a percentage of what it's generating in China. And by comparison, the United States is on track to retire 12.3 gigawatts of dispatchable power this year. And for me personally, that's concerning because over 10% of that, about 1.3% of that is retirements of dispatchable base load power that's taking place in Colorado, even though we're only 1.3% of total energy production in the United States. So with that focus on Colorado, the next question to you is whether we're taking over a gigawatt of power or scheduled to take a gigawatt of Baseload power offline in Colorado this year. Five gigawatts of dispatchable baseload power offline by 2030. At the same time that my governor is saying he wants to make our state a quantum, excuse me, a hub for quantum technology and AI. So the question to you is if you wanted to make your state a leader in quantum computing AI, what would be the energy policy that you would want to see to support that?

Eric Schmidt:

It probably makes sense to retire the coal plants and replace them with natural gas plants. It makes sense in Colorado because you have such great natural resources to work on enhanced geothermal. So there are things that you can do, but the core message I think from the entire panel here is we want more of everything and that we want it sooner. And not only do we want it, we need it for American exceptionalism.

Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO):

Thank you, and I appreciate your reference to the gas plants because my district is truly in all of the above energy district, 83% of the oil, 56% of the natural gas in Colorado, the largest wind generating the wind turbine manufacturing facility probably in the United States is headquartered in my district geothermal solar. We truly are in all of the above, but specifically with gas plants, one of the things that I've heard there is that there's a major backlog in getting the gas turbines. So can you speak a little bit more to the timing of retiring coal generation? If you don't have a gas alternative immediately ready to go.

Eric Schmidt:

I'm not enough of an expert to give you a precise answer. The reason the natural gas plants have become more expensive is demand, which is sort of what we want. We want more of everything and then the market will react. The problem is that these things take years to get backlogs. That delay in natural gas plants will hurt AI competitiveness because it's the best source of power in certain situations. My personal advice is start by, since China's allegedly dumping solar panels, just buy them because they lower energy costs, do whatever it takes to get more power into America. As Mr Turk says, more electrons.

Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO):

Thank you for that. Mr. Wang. Kind of pivoting off of that conversation, I'm just curious if you can speak to in my remaining 45 seconds just briefly. What happens if we lose this AI race with China? What does the world look like if China becomes the leader in that space and no longer the United States? In part because we retired too much power?

Alexandr Wang:

I spoke to this and I think Dr. Schmidt made some relevant comments that AI is on the brink of becoming a very, very powerful technology that is much more than just chat GPT. It's a reasoning engine. It has the ability to very soon conduct cyber attacks be really an very important technology for national security. So to sum it up, I guess in 10 seconds, in a world where the Chinese Communist party wins, they have clear intention to utilize AI as a mechanism to export their ideology globally as well as potentially enable them and other authoritarian countries to lead.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Time has expired on this. So thank you Mr. Evans yields back. We're trying to keep, we got three more to go Dr. Schmidt. So Mr. Landsman.

Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH):

Thank you Mr. Chair and thank you to all of our panelists for your testimony today. This has been incredibly helpful and the issue of AI is one that we have to get right. There's no debate about that winning on AI and harnessing it for good requires. As you all have said very I think impactfully clear instructions and guidance and meaningful investments. Mr. Turk, lemme start with you. Congress has struggled to do this and I'm not picking a fight here. I leading you in any direction. I'm genuinely curious, what do you think the barriers are in terms of us laying out that clear guidance and making the necessary investments?

The Honorable David Turk:

So the good news is Congress provided that certainty provided that window of investment. That's one of the brilliant parts of the legislation that you all passed on the tax credit side to have tax credits in place for 10 years. That investors, that developers at utilities, at AI companies can rely upon and know will be there so that they can make investment decisions that will come to fruition over a period of years. So the good news is the biggest thing you have to do at this point is leave those tax incentives, let that grant money do what the grant money was intended to do by Congress, but just execute on that.

Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH):

That's on the investment and so thank you for that. On the investment and piece of this, but on the clear instructions and guidance, I mean, what do you think is holding Gus back from providing that framework that everyone has been asking for?

The Honorable David Turk:

Well, this is where the private sector will do what the private sector does best when it has that certainty. It doesn't have the chaos from tariffs. It doesn't have the chaos from repeal of provisions. I also completely agree with all the panelists. I don't think there's disagreement we need to build and we need to build quicker in this country, including transmission, but a whole range of clean energy resources permitting takes too long in our country. It's complicated. We've made some progress on that, but we need to make more progress. Totally agree to make it durable, it needs to be bipartisan, and so I know there's conversations happening, we just need to get on with it.

Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH):

Mr. Schmidt, thank you. I agree with that. Mr. Schmidt, can you just talk a little bit about how important talent is? You discussed it earlier, but how important talent is to this whole process and the impact of the chaos around the administration's immigration policies?

Eric Schmidt:

So Silicon Valley and the world I represent is powered by the smartest people or at least the self-proclaimed smartest people in the world and we collectively need them because the algorithms and the approaches we take are incomputable by normal people. I don't understand what most of these people are doing and I have a PhD in this area. That's how complicated this stuff is. The new AI stuff is largely math and it's a new set of math. In fact, there are people who are working on what are the limits of AI using, again, trying to find out where the really limits are. All of that knowledge is in the heads of people around the world who are highly specialized. They're not normal people. They're just geniuses in one way or the other. Men and women, I want all of them here. It is insane to not let them in here.

If you look at polymaths, I wrote a book on this called Genesis and we studied polymaths, a single polymath. The person who invents something, this is the Leonardo da Vinci type person, can generate a trillion dollar industry. Carver Mead and so forth in the 1970s invented semiconductors. Now, a multi-trillion dollar industry. We need those people in America. Imagine if each and every one of those people did not live in America. They lived in another country, in particular China. Furthermore, we have lots evidence, for example, that the quantum lead, that China now has occurred because a specific quantum physicist was not allowed to stay in the country and he said, okay, I'll go back and work for China and the rest is history and quantum is a huge national security issue for the America right now.

Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH):

Thank you for that. Also, Dr. Schmidt, just want to talk a little bit about prices. I only have a few seconds, but prices have gone up, electricity prices in Ohio, and obviously this is going to cause even more pressure on prices. Is it the tax credits and is that the most important thing we can do to keep prices down or do you want congress to do more?

Eric Schmidt:

I want more supply. More supply should lead to better and tougher competition and more dynamic network, which would allow vendor choice. The Congress should not set prices. The Congress enables competition at every level in the value chain in every industry and in particular in electricity.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Thanks. We have two more, two more. If somebody else comes in after we're going to excuse you Dr. Schmidt. We'll keep going. But Mr. Griffith, thanks for yielding back. Mr. Griffith is recognized for five minutes.

Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA):

Thank you very much. Let's continue talking about prices. So it makes absolutely no sense to retire a coal plant, let's say that was opened up in 2012 or 2013, that has a life expectancy of more than 50 years because we've decided we hate coal. Isn't that right, Mr. Schmidt?

Eric Schmidt:

It has to do with how long, it's a more complicated answer.

Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA):

Okay, so for the question, let me cut through some of the complications for the question that Mr. Landsman asked. He said, our prices are going up, what do we need to do? You said we need more supply. I agree with that, but also we can't leave stranded assets out there because this was opened up in my district in 2012 as the cleanest coal plant at the time in the world and a very clean plant, and it's underutilized right now, and there's movements afoot to have it close up early and that takes power away from us and that affects prices because the consumer not only can't access the power because there's not enough supply, which you just said, but it also puts them in a situation where they're paying for the stranded asset of the existing coal plant and the new plant that might replace it, whatever fuel source it uses, whether it be nuclear, which I'm also in favor of, or whether it be natural gas or whether it be wind or solar. That's fairly straightforward, isn't it? Because if you leave the stranded asset, ratepayer is paying for both the old and the new.

Eric Schmidt:

I grew up in coal country of Virginia, so I do understand it.

Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA):

Oh, what county?

Eric Schmidt:

Blacksburg.

Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA):

Okay, they did have coal mining there at one time, but yeah, I represent that area. That's my district.

Eric Schmidt:

The important thing about coal is that over the long run, coal is get regulated out because coal is much dirtier than natural gas. You would always choose natural gas over coal. If you made that decision today, given that you have an under utilized coal plant, I would encourage you to look at the network interconnect. Why is it not fully used? Why are we not taking that resource that you described and fully using it right?

Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA):

Now because we're overregulating coal? I'll just answer that one for you. Now, I also have, and this gets to be interesting, I have an underutilized natural gas plant as well in the area, and so we're trying to attract investment into that region that you grew up in. Blacksburg is a wonderful town. I also represent the coal fields where they still produce the coal and natural gas as well because of our coal bed methane and we've got a natural gas facility. It used to be a coal facility was converted. That's also underutilized and we would love to see folks take a look because as you know, having come from that region, these are very industrious people and whether or not they have that diploma, I'm reminded of the scene in the Wizard of Oz. There's a lot of smarts out there and I believe that both data centers and AI could benefit by being in the region, but when you close down these facilities, I understand you have a preference for natural gas and I understand that, but when you close down these facilities, that creates a problem because wouldn't you agree right now in last year, the American Electric Reliability Corporation's long-term assessment estimated that 115 gigawatts of dispatchable generation is planned to retire over the next 10 years in comparison to what they estimate to be an increased demand of 150 plus gigawatts. Doesn't that impede or make it more difficult for us to have space to grow AI and power our AI as we need to?

Eric Schmidt:

Again, I think all of us believe in more. With respect to the specifics, you have regulatory issues, which you pointed out, which I think should be loosened, but I also think the long-term for coal is to be replaced by natural gas, and I think we should get organized around that and eventually natural gas will be replaced by fusion, which will ultimately solve all of our problems 15 years from now.

Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA):

I'm looking forward to fusion getting here. I hope that you're right on your estimate. I would say this as well because so many times people hear statements like that in my district and they automatically assume that that means coal production is going to end and they don't realize that what you're talking about is coal production for the creation of electric generation. And my district has a rich seam, as you're probably aware of metallurgical coal, which for those who don't know, means that we mine that coal to make coke and steel out of it so that we can produce the steel that's needed for this country. I think somebody mentioned it earlier today that we need the steel so we can make sure we build the equipment and so forth to do the AI with the buildings, et cetera. And you're not going to make that really good steel without burning some of my metallurgical coal. I yield back. Mr. Chairman

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Gentlemen yields back and the Chair recognizes Ms. McClellan for five minutes.

Rep. Jennifer McClellan (D-VA):

Thank you Chairman Guthrie and Member Pallone for planning this hearing. This is probably my favorite hearing of my entire, almost a little over two year congressional career. It is definitely the most important. And Dr. Schmidt, I'm glad you stayed because in your opening statement you said that the sheer speed of AI development is outpacing our societal and government ability to adapt. And I wholeheartedly agree with you. In fact, seven years ago in 2018, I attended a conference at which a speaker was talking about the rise of AI and mega trends and all of these things, and he basically said the same thing. And I came to the conclusion seven years ago that none of our systems in the United States at all government education, none of them are prepared for what's coming. But at the same time as Mr. Wang testified, at that point, 7 years ago, China already had an AI master plan advanced capabilities and President Jing declared China's plan to dominate AI by 2030.

Yet this committee held its first hearing on AI in 2023. The race for AI dominance is reminiscent of the space race, but instead of the Soviet Union, now it's China, but the stakes are even higher. And we won the race to land a man on the moon, and that was critically important to our economy and our national security and innovation and scientific advancement. And to win the race for AI is just as important, but as Mr. Wang testified, while the US leads on computing and we are tied with China on algorithmic development, China leads on data which is the raw material that enables AI to learn, adapt, and improve over time. And as Mr. Wang said, is AI's oil, gas, wind, solar all wrapped in one? So if we lose the race to lead data, we lose the race for AI dominance. Now, the Trump administration's actions since January 20th have directly undermined our ability to win the race for AI dominance.

The haphazard firing of federal workers freezing or cutting federal funds for government agencies and universities critical to supporting competing AI hinders our ability to implement the recommendations of Mr. Wang's testimony and his four pillars to win. This war on renewables that the President is engaged in attempts to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, tax credits undermine the ability to meet our energy demands for data centers. And Trump's reckless tariff policy is increasing costs, exacerbating supply and demand issues already occurring, and raising the cost to build new data centers and semiconductor manufacturing plants that are critical for our AI success because while semiconductors have been exempted from the tariffs, the equipment and machinery used to build and run, the data centers have not. This is not theoretical. Just this week Microsoft announced that it's backing off plans to build three data centers in Ohio. So given this Committee's clear desire to position the US to win the competition with China for AI dominance, I am perplexed by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle's silence over the Trump administration's actions that hinder our ability to do so. And the blank cheque, it looks like we are about to give the president to take those actions. So Mr. Wang, you offer two options for AI dominance in the future and recommend working with our allies to promote an American model of AI technology, but this trade war is actively undermining our ability to work with our allies to do so. Can you elaborate quickly on the steps that we should actually take to work with our allies to promote a US model of AI usage and governance?

Alexandr Wang:

Yes. So the first thing is we need to ensure that NIST, the National Institute of Standards is properly resourced and we're able to make progress on AI measurement signs and ultimately the development of these AI standards. Then we need to codify this into a set of standards that we ultimately agree with in terms of how we should measure AI performance, how we should, what are the characteristics of safe and performing AI systems in the future. And then we should utilize the global network of AI safety institutes, which already exists. Many, many countries have stood them up, France, UK, Japan, India, Korea. I've met the heads of many of these AI Safety institutes. They're all looking towards the United States because they understand that we are the leader in the technology and we need to give them our standards and export it globally.

Rep. Jennifer McClellan (D-VA):

Thank you. And I yield back.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY):

Dr. Schrier, you are recognized for five minutes and if anybody else shows up, I'll let you walk up and go. Thank you for your time, because it's been valuable. I'll shut up and let her go.

Rep. Kim Schrier (D-WA):

I'm so glad you're staying. Let's see. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all our witnesses. This is a fantastic hearing. I am from the Pacific Northwest and chip manufacturing and data center expansion are the big energy demand drivers to the region, so I'm thrilled to have this discussion. We're at this inflection point. We all know that we are really headed straight to an energy crisis. If we don't act quickly on this, it impacts AI and data centers as we've heard a lot about, but also we've been talking nationally a lot about manufacturing and we need affordable energy for that. One of the best ways to maximize access to the power we already have in the US is strategically building out transmission. And last year Senators, Manchin and Barrasso introduced the bipartisan Energy Permitting Reform Act. And I'll be really clear, it's not the bill I would've written.

I was not a fan of all the provisions, but we need to move forward and that's the whole idea that we need compromise in order to move the ball forward. Mr. Bhatia, in your testimony, I see this prime example that you've talked about couple places a couple times where this bill for speeding permitting would make a difference. It was the Boardman to Hemmingway transmission project that connects Oregon to Idaho and in the Pacific Northwest, our peak energy demands in the winter when we turn on the heat, and yet we have our peak hydropower generation in the warmer months when the snow melts. The opposite is true in the mountain region where we see the opposite. So irrigation, air conditioning drive that demand in the summer, and then wind energy is more abundant in the spring and winter. So connecting those two regions would allow us to correct this mismatch and meet the demand. The project, as you said, is about to hit its 21st birthday and it has been stalled for almost 21 years. If we continue to require transmission projects to jump through all of these hoops and red tape, how is that going to hamper our ability to onshore tech, keep onshore tech and expand manufacturing here at home?

Manish Bhatia:

Absolutely. EPRA is something we're absolutely supportive of because what it's going to do is exactly what you mentioned. We've talked about investing in the grid. We've talked about modernizing grid, creating more flexibility so that you can balance supply and demand. And the big data centers, certainly the large semiconductor manufacturing, which we are under construction right now in Boise of what will be the only large scale memory manufacturing facility in the country, the first leading edge one in more than 25 years needs that transmission to be able to ensure that we can have that stable power for the consistent and long-term load growth that we have.

Rep. Kim Schrier (D-WA):

And Dr. Schmidt, basically, same question. If we don't have good transmission and the ability to move energy across the country, how does that impact our ability to remain dominant and win the AI race?

Eric Schmidt:

When I think about your state, I think about all of the incredible natural resources you have, whether it's the west or east part of your state, that power does not have the path out of your state. That's strong enough it needs to get fixed.

Rep. Kim Schrier (D-WA):

Thank you. I just want to emphasize for my Republican colleagues that if they introduce a bill like that one, they will have Democratic partners because we all understand, especially after this hearing that we need to get.

Manish Bhatia:

I just add one more, just one more thing to add it. It's not just about the success of those projects. I know we're talking a lot about AI, but it's about jobs that all of this investment in manufacturing are going to be creating high paying jobs, higher paying jobs today and domestic supply of semiconductors. While critical and important for AI is also critical for many, many other industries that we haven't been able to talk about. Automotive industry, for example, 50% of the cars on the road have a chip made in Micron's facility.

Rep. Kim Schrier (D-WA):

That's right. And we need to manufacture.

Manish Bhatia:

Many, many industries that need these projects to be successful.

Rep. Kim Schrier (D-WA):

I'm going to share one more question quickly to Dr. Schmidt, AI. As I read in Dr. Wang's testimony, Mr. Wang's testimony brings potential benefit, potential risk. We've seen the abuse of AI in China for public surveillance and crackdowns. Now, unfortunately, I'm having to think about that in our country too, with what we're seeing now is suppression of dissent and retribution efforts to crack down on free speech and stymie scientific research. Target nonviolent university protestors who I may not agree with, but we all have the First Amendment rights and we've also seen insurance companies with Medicare Advantage use AI to deny or delay coverage. So as you think about, we actually don't have it any time, if you could write me an answer to what you would suggest for guardrails for AI as we move forward, we want to be able to keep up and do this wisely.

Eric Schmidt:

I will do so. Thank you very much.

Rep. Kim Schrier (D-WA):

Thank you.

Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA):

Alright, so for the folks here to ask questions, ask unanimous consent to insert in the record the documents included on the staff hearing documents list without objection. That will be the order I remind members they have 10 business days to submit questions for the record and ask the witnesses to respond to the questions promptly without objection, committee is adjourned.