00:00Thank you. Senator Lemmis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for coming today. I really have been amazed at the outstanding progress that continues to be made in this field, and I'm already seeing people in Wyoming that are using CHAT, GPT, or CLOD to improve their businesses, whether it's health care or mining or oil and gas or education, ranching even.
00:25I'm just really excited about what this opportunity brings to America. Now, as I see it, the world has presented us with two paths. On one hand, the EU has chosen to regulate first and ask questions later.
00:44The GDPR is already limiting European access to the most capable AI models. On the other hand, China appears to be fast-tracking AI development, standing up large amounts of energy very quickly in an attempt to out-compete America.
01:02So, I'd like to ask a few questions about how we can make sure we get the full benefit of this technology and accelerate its development.
01:12So, first question. Over the past year, we've seen many states, including California and Texas, consider their own AI frameworks, each one significantly burdensome in their own right.
01:25At the same time, our lead against China is shrinking to about only six months.
01:31So, first of all, Mr. Altman, could you please sketch out what the world could look like if the U.S. were to have a patchwork regulatory framework and how that could impact our competitiveness?
01:46Mr. Altman, I think it would be quite bad. I think it's very difficult to imagine us figuring out how to comply with 50 different sets of regulation.
01:58And in many of these states, there have been dozens of different bills proposed that I understand several of which could be passed.
02:05That will slow us down at a time where I don't think it's in anyone's interest for us to slow down.
02:10One federal framework that is light touch that we can understand and that lets us, you know, move with the speed that this moment calls for seems important and fine.
02:22But the sort of every state takes a different approach here, I think would be quite burdensome and significantly impair our ability to do what we need to do and hopefully you all want us to do too.
02:33Does anyone disagree with Mr. Altman's assessment of a patchwork?
02:41I have some questions about the infrastructure that is going to be necessary to lead and compete in AI.
02:50So my next questions are for our infrastructure providers, Mr. Smith and Mr. Is it Intrader?
02:56That's correct.
02:57Intrader, thank you.
02:59Could you elaborate on how current permitting processes have impacted your ability to rapidly deploy AI infrastructure?
03:08The more specific you can be, the better.
03:14So, quick comment on the patchwork and then I'll dive in here is the investment that we're making on the infrastructure side is enormous.
03:25And the idea that you can make an investment that could then become trapped in a jurisdiction that has a particular type of regulation that would not allow you to make full use of it is really very, very suboptimal.
03:43And makes the decision making around infrastructure challenging.
03:48As far as the permitting goes, whenever this topic comes up, the discussion around permitting is excruciating.
04:00And it's excruciating from the ability to quickly build and to build large.
04:06And I think that is kind of from the data center forward without even beginning the discussion from the data center back through the energy infrastructure that is necessary to be able to power these large investments at the scale that make them of relevance to moving artificial intelligence forward.
04:28I'm happy to spend more time kind of digging into more details, but probably do that directly.
04:35Okay, and I'll look forward to that conversation because I'm worried about Wyoming's very clean natural gas being something your industry is concerned about because President Trump likes natural gas, but President Biden didn't.
04:52And if you build huge data centers and another president comes along who's anti-natural gas, that's a concern for you as you're deciding how to deploy capital.
05:04Mr. Smith, do you agree?
05:07Generally, I do.
05:08I mean, I would say we need consistency across administrations in this country.
05:14We need to find more opportunities for bipartisan agreement.
05:18And I'll just highlight that in Cheyenne, where we've long had a data center complex, you know, we do have backup generators that, you know, run on natural gas.
05:29So, you know, there are a variety of ways for us to put, you know, different energy supplies to good use.
05:35Are you exploring small modular nuclear?
05:38Yes, including, you know, with people in Wyoming.
05:42Yeah, thank you.
05:43Mr. Altman, I'm pleased to hear you are releasing an open, oh, my time's up.
05:50Excuse me.
05:51It goes so fast.
05:52I'd love to talk to you about it another time.
