Background

Data centers are the backbone of modern infrastructure and transformative technologies like AI. The thousands of data centers across the U.S. drive economic growth by enabling data processing, secure storage, and connectivity. As demand for these services grows, so do the challenges for operators to balance capacity with supply chain resilience and data security.

Recognizing these opportunities and challenges, NTIA published the RFC to solicit input on the growth, resilience, and security of U.S. data centers, particularly with respect to AI. The RFC addresses several key areas, including energy needs, supply chain resilience, and workforce development. It also seeks input on how data centers are adapting to emerging technologies, managing environmental impacts, and ensuring data security in an evolving digital landscape. Stakeholders are encouraged to provide feedback on these and other critical factors influencing the future of the U.S. data center industry.

RFC Questions

The RFC includes a non-exhaustive list of questions covering key issues related to data center demand growth and invites commenters to provide input on relevant questions and issues not covered in the RFC.

Meeting the demand for computing power

NTIA seeks comment on the current and future challenges and opportunities U.S. data centers face in supplying the computing power required by critical and emerging technologies such as AI.

Key market considerations

NTIA asks commenters to address key considerations including market access, customer demand, renewable energy availability, power grid connectivity, power costs, data residency requirements, high speed broadband infrastructure, workforce capacity and capabilities, government incentives, and land or water availability.

The RFC seeks comment on competition among hyperscalers (i.e., data center facilities larger than 10,000 square feet or with more than 5,000 servers), including barriers to entry for new hyperscalers and potential mitigations, obstacles for customers switching data center providers, and regulatory hurdles.

The RFC asks about existing private or public efforts effectively driving data center modernization or investment and the other actions that should be taken by the private sector, civil society, or the U.S. government to encourage and facilitate data center market entry, growth, and modernization. It also asks about “foreign, exogenous forces” drawing data center market opportunity away from the U.S., the potential impact of data center modernization on other markets, and solutions to address inefficiencies caused by market externalities or market failures.

Social and environmental effects

The RFC raises concerns about the potential societal impacts that may result from the increased demand for computing power and data processing that comes with data center modernization and investment. It asks how rising data center demand might affect broader operational costs by driving increases in land, energy, water, and equipment costs and whether those increases would disproportionately affect small and medium-sized businesses. It also seeks comment on potential environmental impacts arising from increased energy demand, whether greenhouse gas emissions can be managed to address climate concerns, and potential effects on disadvantaged communities or groups (including rural communities) living in or around operation sites. NTIA requests that commenters suggest potential actions the private sector, civil society, or the U.S. government could take to mitigate outcomes for disadvantaged communities or small and medium-size businesses.

Supply chain considerations

NTIA seeks comment on how supply chain risks, vulnerabilities, and threats may impact data center modernization, investment, growth, and continuity. It asks which supply chain dependencies are vital for the availability of information technology and operational technology (IT/OT)  components in data centers and whether there are existing IT/OT equipment supply chain shortages, in fiber optic cable, chips, or other equipment, that could impede U.S. data center development.

The RFC also asks how data centers are adapting to emerging technologies, including edge computing, AI, software-defined infrastructure, and digital coherent optics, as well as open-source software.

NTIA wants to understand the landscape of major data center hardware, software, and services providers, both domestic and international. The RFC asks how the U.S. government can support smaller suppliers, and whether foreign suppliers or those with overseas manufacturing play a crucial role in supplying components for U.S. data centers.

NTIA is also interested in supply chain risk management, including what standards and best practices data center operators and customers are implementing. The RFC seeks comment on measures to exclude untrusted or counterfeit IT/OT components, audit processes, supplier and vendor assessments, legacy equipment evaluations, contingency planning, and efforts to ensure resiliency.

Workforce availability

NTIA wants to understand whether workforce challenges are hindering the growth of the data center industry. The RFC asks whether workforce shortages exist in key areas and whether partnerships and collaborations between the data center industry and the U.S. government, including federally funded research and development centers and University Affiliated Research Centers, can expand industry access to a skilled workforce.

Energy and power considerations

NTIA seeks comment on whether utilities are a reliable power source and how data centers approach the use of backup power. It also asks about data centers’ efforts to find alternatives to grid-connected power and traditional cooling solutions and to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, which approaches appear most effective, and any obstacles data centers face in these efforts.

Data security

NTIA seeks input on existing data security controls, compliance efforts, and governance practices in the data center industry, including the voluntary guidelines, regulations, and frameworks currently in place, as well as obstacles operators face that impede security efforts. The RFC asks how data centers address security incidents and breaches, whether cybersecurity incident reporting requirements or governmental support could facilitate greater security and the scalability of next-generation security practices in the industry.

NTIA is also interested in whether and how data centers are adjusting data security practices to account for running or training frontier AI models or integrating AI capabilities within existing infrastructure. The RFC asks about novel physical or cybersecurity measures, and whether new cybersecurity measures, controls, and risk assessments are necessary in data centers that run and train frontier AI models. It also asks about the benefits, economic feasibility, and obstacles of maintaining physical separation of the infrastructure used for frontier AI training and added security for highly sensitive data such as frontier AI model weights.

NTIA also seeks comment on the types of data security training data centers provide to personnel, how they evaluate their employees’ data security competencies, and how they assess and validate their data security posture.

Government interventions

NTIA seeks comment on actions the Department of Commerce or other federal government entities can take to promote investment, modernization, and growth of the data center industry.

Next Steps

With the NTIA's request for comment open until November 4, 2024, this is a timely opportunity for stakeholders to provide input on the challenges and opportunities shaping the future of the U.S. data center operations. The insights gathered will inform both economic and security policies, as well as energy strategies that could have a lasting impact on the industry’s growth and resilience.

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Authored by Mark Brennan, Katy Milner, Ryan Thompson, and Ambia Harper.