    [Senate Hearing 118-404]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                     S. Hrg. 118-404

                      THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY'S LEAD ROLE
                        IN CONDUCTING ADVANCED COMPUTING
                      RESEARCH, APPLICATION, AND SECURITY

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                                  COMMITTEE ON
                          ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                        ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                               SEPTEMBER 12, 2024

                                   __________

                           Printed for the use of the
                   Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

            Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov

                                    __________

                       U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    56-727                  WASHINGTON : 2025

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                   COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES

                    JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia, Chairman
    RON WYDEN, Oregon                    JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
    MARIA CANTWELL, Washington           JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
    BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont             MIKE LEE, Utah
    MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico          STEVE DAINES, Montana
    MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii              LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
    ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine            JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
    CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada       BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana
    JOHN W. HICKENLOOPER, Colorado       CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi
    ALEX PADILLA, California             JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri

                          Renae Black, Staff Director
                          Sam E. Fowler, Chief Counsel
                    Sarah Kessel, Professional Staff Member
                    Alyse Huffman, Professional Staff Member
                  Justin J. Memmott, Republican Staff Director
               Patrick J. McCormick III, Republican Chief Counsel
               Derek Fisher, Republican Professional Staff Member
                 Chad Thorley, Republican Director of Oversight

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                               OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                       Page
    Manchin III, Hon. Joe, Chairman and a U.S. Senator from West
      Virginia.......................................................     1
    Barrasso, Hon. John, Ranking Member and a U.S. Senator from
      Wyoming........................................................     9
    Durbin, Hon. Richard J., a U.S. Senator from Illinois............    42

                                   WITNESSES

    Fu, Helena, Director, Office of Critical and Emerging
      Technologies, U.S. Department of Energy........................    44
    Gleason, Dr. Shaun, Director of Science-Security Initiative
      Integration, Office of the Laboratory Director, Oak Ridge
      National Laboratory............................................    53
    Kaushik, Dr. Divyansh, Senior Fellow, American Policy Ventures...    63

              ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED

    Abrams, Elliott et al.:
        Letter for the Record........................................   293
    Barrasso, Hon. John:
        Opening Statement............................................     9
        Strider Technologies Report entitled ``The Los Alamos Club:
          How the People's Republic of China Recruited Leading
          Scientists From Los Alamos National Laboratory To Advance
          Its Military Programs'' published in 2022..................    10
        Hoover Institution Report entitled ``Global Engagement:
          Rethinking Risk in the Research Enterprise'' Hoover
          Institution Press, 2020....................................    80
    Chicago Quantum Exchange:
        Letter for the Record........................................   270
    ColdQuanta, Inc. et al.:
        Letter for the Record........................................   272
    Durbin, Hon. Richard J.:
        Opening Statement............................................    42
    Energy Sciences Coalition:
        Statement in support of the DOE Quantum Leadership Act.......   266
        Statement in support of the DOE Artificial Intelligence Act..   300
    Fu, Helena:
        Opening Statement............................................    44
        Written Testimony............................................    46
        Responses to Questions for the Record........................   277
    Gleason, Dr. Shaun:
        Opening Statement............................................    53
        Written Testimony............................................    55
        Responses to Questions for the Record........................   284
    Kaushik, Dr. Divyansh:
        Opening Statement............................................    63
        Written Testimony............................................    65
        Responses to Questions for the Record........................   286
    Manchin, Hon. Joe:
        Opening Statement............................................     1
        Chart ranking countries by percentage of quality research
          papers in the fields of artificial intelligence, advanced
          data analytics, quantum computing, and more................     3
        Letter of support for the FASST Act, signed by AMD, Arm,
          Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel Corporation, and Micron
          Technology.................................................     6
    Montana Chamber of Commerce:
        Letter for the Record........................................   264
    Montana Photonics and Quantum:
        Letter for the Record........................................   263
    Montana State University:
        Letter for the Record........................................   265
    Quantum Industry Coalition:
        Letter for the Record........................................   269
    University of Chicago:
        Letter for the Record........................................   271

                      THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY'S LEAD ROLE
                        IN CONDUCTING ADVANCED COMPUTING
                      RESEARCH, APPLICATION, AND SECURITY

                                  ----------

                         THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER, 12, 2024

                                           U.S. Senate,
                     Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m. in
    Room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joe Manchin
    III, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE MANCHIN III,
                    U.S. SENATOR FROM WEST VIRGINIA

        The Chairman. The Committee will come to order.
        First of all, we would like to welcome our friend and
    colleague, Senator Durbin, for being here in our Committee and
    we appreciate very much having you.
        Before we begin, I want to acknowledge the terrible loss of
    former Director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, Charles
    McMillan, who died in a car accident last week. He was going to
    be here to testify for us today and we are very sorry for his
    family and we express our deepest condolences. Charlie was a
    true patriot to this country who made extraordinary
    contributions to our nuclear weapons programs and other
    critical scientific missions at our national labs for over 40
    years.
        This morning we are here to discuss where we are and where
    we are going in the field of advanced computing, which touches
    on a wide range of technologies and applications across every
    one of our lives. We will also discuss legislation our members
    have introduced in three specific areas: artificial
    intelligence, quantum computing, and cybersecurity. Computing
    technology is advancing rapidly across the globe, and America
    must proceed with both ambition and caution, particularly when
    it comes to our national security and public safety. The DOE
    has a long legacy in computational science, dating back to the
    Manhattan Project in the 1940s, which relied on computational
    modeling.
        Today, the labs currently operate the fastest two
    supercomputers in the entire world. The opportunities that
    high-performance computing provides are endless. In my State of
    West Virginia, it was recently announced that a new
    supercomputer, the Rhea, will be installed in the city of
    Fairmont to improve drought, flood, and wildfire predictions
    and forecasting. Like during the Manhattan Project, we are now
    engaged in a new kind of technological race, one that requires
    us to innovate with similar urgencies and vigilance. We are
    watching our adversaries ramp up their investments in advanced
    computing technologies and even deploy them in battlefields
    across the world.
        The chart behind me, and I am going to keep this chart up
    too, but I want to explain this chart.
        [The chart referred to follows:]
        [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        The Chairman It is really amazing. This is not in dollars
    and cents, so forget about the amount of money, because we
    don't really have that. What we can tell you is, it has been
    scientifically proven that this is the authentic things that
    they have done, and we know that China, in artificial
    intelligence, has 37 percent more capabilities and authenticity
    on what they have been able to report than what we do, at 13.
    It shows you how far we are behind. Advanced analytics--31
    percent for China, 15 percent U.S. Quantum computing--we are
    still ahead 34 to 15. Machine learning--China. Cybersecurity
    technology--China. High-performance computing--we are still
    ahead, barely, but we are there. And then when it comes down to
    quantum communications, it shows you the difference.
        This is where we are, and we know this has been proven and
    this is where they are at as far as their capacity and
    authenticity of what they are doing. Would you all agree on
    that? Okay. So we will keep that one up. Put that chart up over
    there.
        We are using published research paper data in place of
    spending because the U.S. Government does not trust how China
    is reporting their expenditures. As the chart showed, America
    is at real risk of falling behind to China in this race, and it
    is becoming increasingly apparent that whoever leads in the
    development of these technologies will secure the unequivocal
    lead in scientific and technology innovation writ large. For
    the United States to maintain our position as a global leader,
    we must accelerate our efforts. The stakes are nothing short of
    economic prosperity and national security. Our national
    laboratories have spent decades building a workforce and
    infrastructure to answer the challenging questions about how to
    safely deploy these emerging technologies in a way that sets an
    example for the rest of the world.
        While we are proud that our private sector is making
    incredible strides developing and deploying advanced computing,
    this does not replace the need for government research and
    development. Complex societal challenges, like advanced
    manufacturing, nuclear security, and genomics are a few areas
    of application where there is not yet an established commercial
    market. And this is why Senator Murkowski and I have introduced
    bipartisan legislation to reinforce the artificial intelligence
    research and development programs at our DOE labs. The bill
    authorizes the Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence for
    Science, Security and Technology, or the FASST Act, as an
    initiative at the Department of Energy which will give the
    United States the tools to deliver secure and dependable AI
    solutions.
        This bill would create AI research and innovation hubs at
    our labs that will harness testbeds for the development of AI
    platforms, develop foundational models for various applications
    for energy and national security, verify the safety of new
    large language models, and establish a risk evaluation program
    to respond to security risks. It is just common sense to use
    our nation's brain trust at our national labs and their state-
    of-the-art facilities that we have already built and maintain
    to safely advance AI while safeguarding taxpayer dollars.
        Industry and the science community alike have publicly
    supported our bill. I would like to submit, for the record, the
    supportive statement of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, AMD, Intel,
    ARM, Micron, and the Energy Sciences Coalition. Without
    objection, so be it.
        [Letter of support for the FASST ACT follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        The Chairman. Let me also reiterate that America will need
    more energy to meet the growing demand from data centers and
    the manufacturing resurgence that has resulted from the
    Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS and Science Act, and
    Inflation Reduction Act. For decades, power demand has been
    decreasing, but now we are expecting a rapid turnaround this
    decade. But while demand is increasing, we have 2.6 million
    megawatts of generation waiting an average of five years to
    connect to the grid, and we are also retiring baseload and
    dispatchable generation faster than we can replace it. This is
    unacceptable. If America can't build the energy infrastructure
    needed to support high-tech industries, companies will choose
    to take their business elsewhere. We simply must get common-
    sense policy like our bipartisan energy permitting bill enacted
    or we will have squandered this opportunity and really put
    ourselves at risk.
        Today, we will be discussing quantum computing, which
    processes information much more quickly and efficiently than
    even our fastest supercomputers do today. Senator Durbin and
    Senator Daines recently introduced bipartisan legislation to
    reauthorize many quantum programs throughout the Department of
    Energy, and Senator Durbin is going to be joining us to speak
    briefly about his bill.
        We can't discuss this new era of emerging technology
    development without considering cybersecurity and broader
    national security implications. These technologies can serve as
    assets, but also as threats to the cybersecurity posture of the
    United States. We have seen the devastating effects of a
    cyberattack on our critical infrastructure, like the Colonial
    Pipeline attack in 2021 that forced the shutdown of the
    country's most important fuel pipeline.
        Last year, I joined Senator Risch in introducing the ETAC
    Establishment Act, which establishes the Energy Threat Analysis
    Center at DOE. ETAC will serve as the energy sector centralized
    hub in the Federal Government for cyber information, sharing
    threat response to better defend the U.S. energy sector against
    cyber threats. We must also pay attention to how we are
    protecting our scientific program from nefarious actors. We
    will not outcompete China if they are able to just steal the
    technology funded by our taxpayer dollars. The CHIPS and
    Science Act authorized improvements to our research security
    policies that are already being implemented by the Department.
    But as the threat environment becomes more complex and stakes
    become higher, much more must be done. During the past several
    months, Senator Barrasso and I have been working with our
    colleagues on the Intelligence Committee to strengthen our
    research security policies to secure the science performed in
    our national labs while not stifling their work or closing
    ourselves off to the global scientific community.
        I am confident this is something we can get done in this
    year's National Defense Authorization Act. We have a lot to
    cover this morning. I am looking forward to hearing our
    witnesses' perspectives on specific steps we can take to ensure
    America is advancing all these technologies in a competitive
    and a responsible manner. I know we certainly do not need to
    start from scratch to achieve this. Instead of duplication, we
    can invest smartly in emerging technologies in a cost-effective
    way by building upon the resources that we already have at the
    DOE and its national labs. This is how we will maintain our
    global lead in scientific innovation.
        And with that, I am going to turn to my colleague and
    friend, Senator Barrasso, for his opening remarks.

               OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO,
                       U.S. SENATOR FROM WYOMING

        Senator Barrasso. Well said, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
    holding today's very important hearing.
        Research into advanced computing is critical--critical to
    maintaining America's economic growth, our national security,
    and our leadership in the world. The Department of Energy,
    through its network of 17 national labs, plays a very key role
    in all of those innovations. The Department has some of the
    most advanced computing systems in the world. In fact, the
    Department has the world's two fastest supercomputers and a
    third supercomputer among the world's top ten. These systems
    have pioneered advances in artificial intelligence and in
    quantum computing. These are two fields that the People's
    Republic of China does seek to dominate. For this reason, China
    is watching nearly every move that our national labs make. Our
    labs are under constant surveillance by a branch of China's
    intelligence network that focuses on science and technology.
    This branch alone consists of about 100,000 agents. Beginning
    under Chairman Mao, this intelligence network has supported the
    development of China's nuclear weapons and its missile and
    satellite programs. And its mission remains the same today--
    target foreign technologies useful to the Chinese communist
    regime and acquire them by any means possible.
        America's open research environment is the envy of the
    world. It has fostered our greatest scientific achievements,
    yet it is a rich target for China and other adversaries. As
    stated by the National Academy of Sciences, ``The integrity of
    research is based on the values of objectivity, honesty,
    openness, fairness, accountability, and stewardship.'' Contrast
    this with the view of China's President, Xi Jinping. He
    recently described science and technology development as a
    contest to be won. He stated, ``The initiatives of innovation
    and development must be secretly kept in our own hands, and
    whoever holds the key to innovation makes an offensive move,''
    he said, ``in this chess game, and will be able to take the
    lead and win the advantage.''
        A 2022 report, titled ``Los Alamos Club,'' by Strider
    Technologies, is telling. I have a copy of the report here, Mr.
    Chairman.
        [The report referred to follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Senator Barrasso. It says between 1987 and 2021, the
    Chinese Communist Party targeted over 160 Chinese nationals
    working at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Upon returning to
    China, these researchers helped them advance key military
    technologies using knowledge financed by us, by the American
    taxpayers. Today, thousands of non-U.S resident Chinese
    nationals still work at our national labs, and I believe the
    majority of these foreign nationals strive to further
    scientific innovation and collaborate in good faith. Make no
    mistake, they are beholden to an authoritarian regime, and the
    Chinese Communist Party is ruthless. Some of these Chinese
    nationals will see no other choice but to support the Chinese
    Communist Party through theft of American research and
    technology because if they don't comply, their families back in
    China may be punished.
        Others will be tempted through bribery. Earlier this year,
    a Chinese national and former software engineer at Google was
    arrested for stealing on behalf of a Chinese firm which was
    paying him secretly. The U.S. Justice Department has charged
    this individual with stealing software used to orchestrate
    Google's supercomputers at the cutting edge of machine learning
    and AI technology.
        In 2020, Congress required the Department of Energy to
    devise a study of counterintelligence efforts at our national
    labs. The Department hired MITRE, a government contractor, to
    conduct this study. In April 2023, MITRE produced an
    unclassified report. Upon receiving the report, the Secretary
    of Energy then decided to classify it. The Secretary reassigned
    the Director of the Department's Office of Intelligence and
    Counterintelligence without an explanation. I have asked the
    Department to declassify the MITRE report and for the
    Department to come clean with the American people. The U.S.
    Department of Energy has refused. One can draw many different
    conclusions from the Department's stonewalling. The Department
    may simply want to hide its failures from the public, but
    whatever the reason, it is clear that the Department of Energy
    and our national labs have failed to take the China threat
    seriously.
        Mr. Chairman, we can't let our research and technology fall
    into the hands of China's brutal dictatorship. The Department
    must dramatically increase its efforts to protect our research
    from our adversaries, and Congress must step in if the
    Department fails to do its job.
        Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for calling this important
    hearing, and I look forward to today's testimony.
        The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
        Now we will turn to our friend and colleague, Senator
    Durbin.

             OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD J. DURBIN,
                       U.S. SENATOR FROM ILLINOIS

        Senator Durbin. Do you want to go to Senator Cortez Masto
    first?
        The Chairman. No, we will go after you, then we are going
    to go to the witnesses.
        Senator Durbin. I am going to be very brief.
        Thank you, Chairman Manchin and Ranking Member Barrasso for
    this opportunity, and to all the members of the Committee.
        I won't sit before you today and pretend I am Nobel Prize
    material for science or engineering. I am just a liberal arts
    lawyer. However, there are brilliant scientists in my home
    State of Illinois that have given me a crash course in quantum
    computing. I have visited Illinois' two national labs--Argonne
    and Fermi--many times and seen their extraordinary work. And
    this past summer, Argonne's Aurora supercomputer achieved
    exascale computing speeds, landing at the top spot among the
    most powerful supercomputers in the world. Achievements like
    this are why, more than a decade ago, I founded the Senate
    National Labs Caucus, along with Senator Risch. It's why I
    worked with so many of you on this Committee to support the
    Department of Energy's Office of Science. The fact is, when
    America invests in science, we lead the world, and nowhere is
    this truer than in advanced computing.
        I want to say, parenthetically, thank you to Senators
    Manchin and Barrasso for talking about competition with China.
    It should be a focal point every single day for all of us. I
    think for a moment, and I know Senator Barrasso is an amateur
    historian himself--it was in my lifetime that ping-pong
    diplomacy took place. This primitive, backward, oxen-driven
    economy in China in 50 years emerged as a world competitor to
    the United States of America. And that is why we are meeting
    today to discuss it.
        Senator Daines and I have introduced a bill called the
    Department of Energy Quantum Leadership Act, reauthorizing
    quantum research and development activities across DOE,
    expanding DOE quantum research centers, tackling supply chain
    and prototype challenges in the private sector, and expanding
    training programs for the quantum workforce. This is timely,
    it's important, and it's before this Committee. I urge you to
    enact it as quickly as possible. Let's get it passed.
        The Chairman. Thank you, Senator, so much. And I would say
    to all of our members that we would, as a Committee, share this
    and keep updating it to show every legislative member--535--
    exactly where we stand. And if we don't start acting, and
    acting in unity, we are not going to be able to catch up or
    excel. So I think this is a stark reminder of where we are and
    this is very accurate, very factual. I think you all would
    agree that we pulled these out of what you all have looked at,
    and said this is where they are and this is where we are.
        So we want people to understand that. So we will be sharing
    that without any objections from the Committee, and with that,
    Senator, we appreciate you coming in and sharing your thoughts.
        Senator Durbin. Thank you.
        The Chairman. At this time, we are going to turn to our
    panel of witnesses.
        We have Ms. Helena Fu, Director of the Office of Critical
    and Emerging Technologies at the Department of Energy.
        We have Dr. Shaun Gleason, who is Director of Science-
    Security Initiative Integration at Oak Ridge National
    Laboratory.
        We have Dr. Kaushik, Senior Fellow, American Policy
    Ventures.
        And with that, we will start with Ms. Fu.

     STATEMENT OF HELENA FU, DIRECTOR, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY,
              OFFICE OF CRITICAL AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

        Ms. Fu. Thank you so much.
        Chairman Manchin, Ranking Member Barrasso, distinguished
    members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to
    testify about the Department of Energy's leadership in advanced
    computing research and its application and cybersecurity. I
    want to start by thanking this Committee for your strong
    support of DOE for many years. My name is Helena Fu. I serve as
    the Director of the DOE Office of Critical and Emerging
    Technologies. My office coordinates across the Department of
    Energy and its 17 national laboratories in artificial
    intelligence, biotechnology, microelectronics, and quantum
    information science.
        Since its origins from the Manhattan Project, the entire
    Department of Energy complex has been working at the frontier
    of science, driving advances central to America's prosperity
    and security. Two of the most critical scientific frontiers
    that we currently face are artificial intelligence and quantum
    information science. And today, we all see the transformative
    potential of AI. DOE and its national labs have long invested
    in AI and its applications, and in addition, DOE is the leading
    generator of classified and unclassified scientific data
    through the world's largest collection of scientific
    experimental facilities. We build and operate, in partnership
    with industry, the world's fastest and most powerful
    supercomputers, that are both strategic assets and serve the
    scientific community. Our proposed Frontiers in AI for Science,
    Security and Technology initiative, or FASST, seeks to harness
    this infrastructure at DOE to deliver a step change in
    capability for the nation, to develop AI-ready data, and to
    advance the next generation of frontier-scale computing
    platforms. Building on this data and compute, we need to
    develop models that deeply understand science, math, physics,
    and chemistry, and we need to apply these models to solve our
    most pressing challenges in discovery science, in applied
    energy, and in national security.
        Beyond AI, quantum could help unlock new forms of computing
    and information processing. And the National Quantum
    Information Act authorized DOE's five national QIS research
    centers. DOE is making strides in the science that could help
    unlock quantum's potential in computing, in simulation, in
    networking, and in sensing. We have created a first-of-a-kind
    quantum computing user access program, created testbeds and
    foundries, and built underground facilities to characterize
    devices. These investments are helping to build up the quantum
    ecosystem in the United States, where we are working across 115
    institutions, 24 states, with trusted international partners
    and with other parts of the interagency. DOE is also making
    strategic investments in quantum computing to address nuclear
    security challenges, and we are exploring potential
    applications to our energy mission.
        A resilient and secure power grid underpins and enables
    U.S. leadership in AI and quantum, and DOE is continuing to
    strengthen the energy sector's cyber defenses and invest in new
    capabilities, such as the Energy Threat Analysis Center, or
    ETAC. The ETAC pilot brings experts from government and from
    industry together to address the growing cyber threats to U.S.
    electricity, oil, and natural gas systems. The ETAC pilot has
    been instrumental in rapidly addressing cyber threats, such as
    the PRC-sponsored Volt Typhoon activity.
        On a solemn note, I would like to recognize the life of Dr.
    Charlie McMillan, who passed away unexpectedly last week. For
    35 years, Charlie worked at Lawrence Livermore National
    Laboratory and as Director of Los Alamos National Laboratory.
    He had recently come out of retirement to work with me and our
    labs on our AI initiative because he saw how important this
    was. We in the entire DOE community feel this loss keenly, and
    our hearts go out to Charlie's family and friends.
        We are at an inflection point in AI and in quantum and
    cyber. The DOE, with its dedicated scientific workforce of
    40,000 strong, our ability to drive mission science through
    deep partnerships, and the ability to work across the entire
    ecosystem, from discovery science to applied energy to national
    security--we stand ready to do our part. I want to thank the
    Committee for its ongoing and bipartisan support for the DOE
    mission, and we look forward to working with all of you. I am
    happy to answer your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Fu follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Fu.
        And now we have Dr. Gleason.

     STATEMENT OF DR. SHAUN GLEASON, DIRECTOR OF SCIENCE-SECURITY
     INITIATIVE INTEGRATION, OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY, OFFICE
                       OF THE LABORATORY DIRECTOR

        Dr. Gleason. Chairman Manchin, Ranking Member Barrasso, and
    members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to
    speak with you today. My name is Shaun Gleason. I am currently
    the Director of the Science-Security Initiative Integration at
    the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory
    (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where I have 35 years of
    service. I serve as a liaison between the open science and
    national security mission communities and I am specifically
    focused on emerging technologies, such as artificial
    intelligence, quantum science, cybersecurity, and high-
    performance computing across the diverse mission areas of ORNL.
    I am also an entrepreneur who founded a startup company that
    successfully transitioned a medical imaging technology to the
    market.
        There are grand challenges where we must accelerate
    progress to ensure continued U.S. leadership in the emerging
    technologies of quantum, cyber, and AI. For example, in AI,
    energy efficiency is a grand challenge, as many are predicting
    that energy use by AI-driven data centers will approach ten
    percent of U.S. energy demand by 2030. While energy-efficient
    AI is crucial, we also need our AI systems to be safe, secure,
    and trustworthy. For quantum, a primary grand challenge is the
    ability to create reliable and affordable quantum devices that
    are the building blocks for quantum computers. Another grand
    challenge is creating a quantum internet that can reliably and
    securely share quantum information with many different devices
    over long distances. Cybersecurity is a grand challenge arms
    race where every defensive move inspires an adversary's
    offensive move and vice versa. Protecting U.S. critical
    infrastructure, such as the electric grid, from cyberattacks
    requires regional, public-private partnerships and real-world
    cyber testbeds that are connected to a national information
    coordination network.
        Some of the most exciting and critical areas for
    revolutionary innovations are where the fields of AI,
    cybersecurity, and quantum intersect with one another. In the
    fields of cybersecurity and AI, AI is being used to create
    dynamic, self-learning cyber-defense tools that can adapt to
    the rapidly changing cyberattacks against our nation's
    infrastructure. AI systems themselves are uniquely vulnerable
    to a variety of cyberattacks that can manipulate AI into making
    decisions favorable to an adversary. Adversaries can create
    public websites filled with disinformation that are
    automatically scraped for data that can bias an AI model during
    training. To combat cyberattacks on AI systems, several of the
    DOE national labs, including ORNL, Los Alamos, Pacific
    Northwest, and Lawrence Livermore, have created internal
    organizations to develop cybersecurity methods specifically for
    the defense of AI systems.
        The discoveries being made at the intersection of AI and
    quantum are also powerful, and the scientific community is only
    scratching the surface. For example, AI is being leveraged to
    accelerate the development of quantum computers by accelerating
    the discovery of new quantum materials and generating new types
    of error-correcting codes for quantum computers. Conversely,
    quantum computers are being used to speed up AI model training
    algorithms and to generate realistic simulated data that can be
    used to train data-hungry AI models. Additional research is
    needed to capitalize on these opportunities.
        DOE's national laboratories are also home to powerful
    experimental facilities that are made available to
    universities, industry, and other government agencies to
    conduct cutting-edge research. Thanks to investments by
    Congress through DOE's Office of Science and the National
    Nuclear Security Administration, the national labs have
    deployed the first open science exascale computers--Frontier at
    Oak Ridge National Lab, Aurora at Argonne, and later this year,
    El Capitan at Lawrence Livermore.
        The combination of world-class talent, computing, and
    experimental facilities positions DOE to lead in AI, quantum,
    and cybersecurity research. Exemplifying the value of
    partnerships in quantum, ORNL is currently performing quantum-
    based secure communication experiments in collaboration with
    the electric power board in Chattanooga and the University of
    Tennessee in Chattanooga on their commercial quantum network.
    To maintain U.S. leadership in AI, public-private partnerships
    are also critical. For example, ORNL recently partnered with
    Advanced Micro Devices and Microsoft to develop software that
    can train a one trillion parameter AI model on the Frontier
    supercomputer.
        In summary, the grand challenges before us motivate
    partnerships across the government, the DOE national laboratory
    system, industry, and academia to accelerate the pace of
    innovation. DOE has demonstrated its commitment to advancing
    research and technology transitions across all three of these
    important areas while trying to balance associated risks. Thank
    you once again for the opportunity to testify, and I welcome
    any questions you have on these important topics.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Gleason follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        The Chairman. Thank you, Doctor.
        And now we have Dr. Kaushik.

                  STATEMENT OF DR. DIVYANSH KAUSHIK,
                SENIOR FELLOW, AMERICAN POLICY VENTURES

        Dr. Kaushik. Chairman Manchin, Ranking Member Barrasso, and
    distinguished members of the Committee, thank you for the
    opportunity to testify today.
        We are at a critical juncture in technological history. The
    People's Republic of China, the PRC, is in an intense
    competition with the United States, aiming to dominate advanced
    computing and AI by 2030. Over the past seven years, they have
    increased their R&D budgets by ten percent annually while
    engaging in sophisticated espionage efforts to acquire
    technology. This is not just economic competition, it is a
    strategic effort to reshape the global order. The Department of
    Energy and its network of 17 national laboratories and 35 user
    facilities are our technological vanguard. These institutions
    have consistently delivered innovations underpinning American
    leadership, from clean rooms to platforms driving key
    industries today. The DOE labs' potential to drive AI
    innovation is enormous, with applications for national
    security, energy, and scientific advancement. These
    breakthroughs powered by DOE's supercomputing capabilities
    could revolutionize areas like material sciences, molecular
    dynamics, and power grid resilience.
        This necessitates a multifaceted approach. We must enhance
    the security of our national lab facilities. We must maximize
    their operational and scientific capabilities and we must
    implement strategic initiatives to attract and retain the
    talent that wants to come here while removing those who seek to
    exploit our system. We must foster an environment where our
    scientists and engineers are encouraged to think big, push the
    boundaries of innovation, and be confident that their
    groundbreaking research is safeguarded against foreign
    exploitation.
        The PRC has explicitly held up U.S. national laboratories
    as models to emulate in their five-year plans. Stating in their
    13th five-year plan, and I quote: ``National laboratories have
    become key platforms for major developed countries to seize the
    high ground in technological innovation. For instance, the
    Argonne, Los Alamos, and Lawrence Berkeley National
    Laboratories in the United States are all research bases
    focused on national missions. It is urgently needed to focus on
    national goals and strategic needs, target international
    technological frontiers, and establish a group of larger-scale
    interdisciplinary and integrative national laboratories.'' This
    is a direct quote from their five-year plan. Xi Jinping has
    since announced the creation of their own national laboratories
    that are explicitly designed to mimic and ultimately surpass
    our DOE complex. While imitation may be the sincerest form of
    flattery, in this context, it serves as a stark reminder of the
    value and the vulnerability of our national laboratories. The
    PRC's efforts to surpass our labs and capitalize on their
    advancements highlights the pressing need for a comprehensive
    approach to research security that preserves our competitive
    edge.
        The bottom line is that the PRC is pursuing an aggressive
    campaign of technological advancement that relies on both
    aggressively investing in their own R&D ecosystem and illicitly
    acquiring intellectual property. Furthermore, their strategy
    integrates civilian research with military applications, as
    evidenced by statements from top Chinese academic institutions,
    including Tsinghua University, commonly referred to as their
    MIT. This goes beyond normal competition. It represents a
    coordinated effort to challenge America's innovation leadership
    and reshape the global technological landscape in Beijing's
    authoritarian image.
        The PRC's legal framework further complicates this picture.
    Laws such as the 2017 National Intelligence Law compel Chinese
    citizens and organizations to ``support, assist, and cooperate
    with state intelligence work.'' This means that even well-
    intentioned PRC researchers may be legally obligated to share
    information with their government, regardless of any
    commitments made to U.S. institutions. Let me be clear,
    research security is not about stifling innovation or closing
    our doors to the world. It is not about--and cannot be about--
    targeting individuals based on their ethnicity. It is simply
    about ensuring that our openness is not exploited to our
    detriment by our adversaries. The DOE's national laboratories
    have long been a shining beacon for scientists and researchers
    worldwide. This is an asymmetric advantage that we have.
        This global appeal is not just a point of pride, it is a
    cornerstone of our technological leadership. For instance, 59
    percent of top-tier AI researchers work in the United States,
    but only about 20 percent of them got their undergraduate
    degrees here. Our nation's commitment to freedom, to free
    speech, to freedom of inquiry, innovation, and scientific
    excellence has made us the destination of choice for the
    world's brightest minds. We can and must maintain our
    leadership in scientific collaboration, but on terms that
    protect our national interests. We passed several laws.
    Effective implementation of these remains key, whether it be
    the research security provisions in CHIPS or in NSPM-33.
        The path that I have laid out today is undoubtedly
    challenging and will require sustained commitment and vigilant
    oversight. However, the alternative--a world where the PRC
    dictates the rules for transformative technologies--is simply
    not an option that we can entertain. There is much more that I
    could say on these matters, but I trust that we will cover them
    more fully over the course of this hearing. Thank you for the
    opportunity to testify. I look forward to your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Kaushik follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        The Chairman. Thank you.
        Now we are going to begin our questions, and I will begin.
        This is for all three of you to think about, but we, as
    Senators--Democrats and Republicans--are looking at, whether it
    be the CHIPS Act and how we divide our money up and this and
    that. I don't want to reinvent the wheel. Okay? And I don't
    want to split the baby. The bottom line is, you do what you do,
    and NSF should do what they do. And for some reason, whoever
    has what in their state--I would like to make sure that we are
    not making that mistake and going down a path where you don't
    have the ability to make up the differences where we are
    lagging behind right now.
        So if you can--and this isn't disparaging anything in NSF.
    They have so much expertise in certain areas, but in the CHIPS
    Act, you know, what we have done there, you already have that
    computing expertise, you already have the investment in the
    supercomputers and quantum computing and all that. Why would we
    basically try to reinvent the baby again--you know, the wheel,
    if you will? So would you all speak in comparison of what you
    think each one of you all do with our labs versus NSF and how
    we can direct more of our attention to make sure that both of
    you can meet your full potential?
        You want to start, Ms. Fu?
        Ms. Fu. Sure, I am happy to speak on this because there has
    been a lot of discussion on the AI policy.
        The Chairman. Does it make sense, what I am asking you?
        Ms. Fu. Of course, yes. NSF obviously plays an extremely
    important role in the nation's ecosystem. It is focused on
    workforce development. It is focused on training. It is focused
    on providing grants to research institutions all across the
    country. And that is incredibly important and we need that.
    DOE's focus is as a capability organization. We are a mission-
    driven R&D agency that is focused on science at scale to solve
    complex challenges that only can be done by big-team science.
    And so, we also work very closely with universities across the
    country, but we are focused on specific problem sets that we
    are trying to address.
        And so, I think that the roles of NSF and DOE are actually
    quite complementary because the NSF funds researchers that then
    become part of the AI ecosystem that can become part of the
    workforce that is going to help drive the frontier. But
    ultimately, we do play very, very different roles in the AI
    ecosystem and the innovation ecosystem.
        The Chairman. Not to put you on the spot, but did we
    direct, through the CHIPS Act, investments toward NSF that are
    trying to recreate what you are already doing?
        Ms. Fu. Well, they are certainly working on the national AI
    research resource. And I will say, on that, because we
    recognize the importance of access to compute, I will say this:
    DOE's supercomputers have been open to the research community.
    We leaned in and extended the life of Summit supercomputer at
    Oak Ridge National Lab and also provided access to testbeds
    through the NAIRR pilot. So we are working very closely with
    NSF in this endeavor.
        The Chairman. You don't feel that competition that one is
    taking away? We can do even more if it was directed to what we
    do and what our expertise is versus trying to duplicate that.
        Ms. Fu. I will say, we are playing our part in the
    ecosystem. And I firmly believe they are very, very
    complementary.
        The Chairman. Dr. Gleason, do you want to comment on this?
    It's not the easiest. I am putting you in a spot, I know that,
    but what we are trying to do--I think all of us are trying to
    make sure that we have used our taxpayer dollars in the most
    efficient and effective way possible, and have NSF do what they
    do best and let you do what you do best, but not trying to
    overlap each other.
        Dr. Gleason. So this is a very good question. I would echo
    a lot of what Helena said about complementary roles and
    responsibilities. Maybe saying the same thing just a little bit
    differently, from my perspective as a leader of scientists at
    Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is that NSF is about access to
    software infrastructure tools for the masses--for universities,
    students, et cetera, to have access to artificial intelligence
    and computational power to try out new methods, new algorithms,
    evaluate new software and tools. Oak Ridge National Laboratory
    and the lab system really provide world-leading capabilities
    and world-leading science and technology input to that. So for
    example, we, as Helena mentioned, we provide the Summit
    supercomputer as part of the NAIRR effort. We have had lots of
    people sign up to use that, as part of the NAIRR program, and
    we help them achieve their science and technology objectives
    because we have subject matter expertise that we can put
    alongside them. How do you use a supercomputer? What is the
    scientific area that you are trying to make discoveries in? We
    have experts in those spaces that we can line up with them and
    help them achieve their science and technology objectives.
        So that is a differential. And we rely heavily on NSF for
    workforce development, new students, training, that we can--
    hopefully, some of those will come to the national labs and
    contribute at some point.
        The Chairman. Sounds like you all are doing better than we
    are at working together.
        Dr. Gleason. I agree.
        The Chairman. And Dr. Kaushik, do you have a comment on it?
        Dr. Kaushik. Yes, I agree with everything that they have
    said, but I would point out one other thing. I think NSF's
    focus is more on foundational research, on basic research where
    we do not have near-term applications or we do not know about
    exploring the unknown, where DOE, they are trying to
    supercharge the capabilities we have to get things out there to
    take an aim at moonshots. And I think that is very critical for
    our national security enterprise, and the critical role--one of
    the differentiators between DOE and NSF is the role DOE labs
    play in furthering our national security--all the NNSA labs--in
    furthering our national security work, as compared to the more
    fundamental science that NSF tries to invest in.
        The Chairman. Thank you all.
        We will go for seven minutes, okay, to give you a little
    bit more time since other Senators are at so many different
    committee meetings. My main thing is on power, too, because I
    know it's going to take an awful lot of power to generate this.
    I am concerned. We have seen over 90 gigawatts of coal power
    retired in the last decade. That is dispatchable, 24/7 power--
    gone. And we can see twice as much dispatchable capacity retire
    in the next decade on the path that we have been heading down,
    historically. It can't be more clearly demonstrated than PJM's
    recent assessment that 40 gigawatts of existing generation are
    at risk of retirement by 2030, yet only 30 gigawatts of
    equivalent capacity are projected to be added. Take that in
    comparison, China is bringing on 90 gigawatts online every two
    years of dispatchable power, and we are, I mean, this whole
    environment, we are all responsible, but we have to understand
    what we are dealing with.
        I don't know if any of you want to comment on that, and if
    you have raised the concern that we are not going to be able to
    energize these data centers to compete? Just as quickly as you
    can.
        Ms. Fu. This is a focus for the Department. We understand
    the implications of having enough power to power both
    manufacturing that is coming back to the United States,
    electrification of the grid, as well as the data centers and
    the AI that is going to be needed to train those models in the
    United States. The Secretary and the entire Department are very
    focused on this issue. We just recently issued a new website--a
    new hub--for folks who want to work with us on these issues.
        I will say this: there are new technologies and new tools
    that we have available--grants, tax credits, loans, technical
    assistance--that we are bringing to bear on this particular
    issue. Our Lawrence Berkeley National Lab is also working on a
    study that is looking at energy efficiency in data centers. And
    then, I will also point to the work that we were able to do in
    the exascale computing project.
        The Chairman. You are all on different grid zones. Are you
    concerned about the grid being able to be reliable, the grid
    that you are in?
        Ms. Fu. We absolutely need to make sure that the grid is
    resilient and that it's able to manage the load.
        The Chairman. Are you all evaluating that and monitoring?
        Ms. Fu. Yes. We are focused on this issue, especially as it
    relates to data center energy growth.
        The Chairman. How many of you are on PJM? Most of you are
    on PJM as far as dispatchable, you know, where our power is--
    the PJM system. I am just saying--I just think we are heading
    for a real calamity here.
        Anybody else want to comment on that?
        Dr. Kaushik. I am happy to, Senator. Just one of the things
    that we have to understand--the reality is, over the last six
    years, the computational needs of AI systems have grown a
    millionfold, like ChatGPT-1 to ChatGPT-4, the computational
    needs have grown a millionfold. The parameters have grown a
    millionfold. Now, since 2010, we have seen that the number of
    computations that we are putting toward AI models is doubling
    every six months. And there is no reason to believe that that
    is going to slow down any time soon.
        I think there was a recent Bloomberg article stating that
    it is taking about seven years' delay for a completed data
    center that would require 100 megawatts or more of energy to be
    connected to the grid in Virginia. And I think those statistics
    should raise some alarm--and I think to what Helena pointed
    out, I think those tools are great, but we would need further
    action, probably something, you know, not just about how we are
    providing loans and financing to data center companies or
    utility companies, but what are we doing in terms of energy-
    efficient AI? What are we doing in terms of making sure that
    data centers can come online, whether it's, you know, in the
    long term, where we are building those data centers in the
    United States, but in the near term, how can we make sure that
    those data centers are not going to countries which are using--
    infrastructure, but are using American hardware.
        And so, I think those are important questions for us to
    address. And I think the action that this Committee has taken
    on permitting will have a big impact on that, but we need more.
        The Chairman. Got you.
        Senator Barrasso.
        Senator Barrasso. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
        Let me stick with you, if I could, Dr. Kaushik. You are an
    expert on China's science and technology policy. What unique
    threats does China pose to government-funded research and
    development of critical and emerging technologies?
        Dr. Kaushik. I think, Senator, the answer is very clear.
    They have a targeted effort that we call the civil-military
    fusion, where even their universities have put out statements
    saying that all the basic foundational research that they do is
    toward military gain. Every IP theft case that we have seen,
    every espionage concern that we have seen, I think, all of that
    is ultimately feeding into their military complex. Now, that
    plus their legal situation with the National Intelligence Law
    or the National Cybersecurity Law and all those things are
    making it more complicated for Chinese researchers to be able
    to actually act in good faith because no matter what
    commitments they made to U.S. institutions, they are required
    by law to share all that information with the Chinese
    government. And I think when they are trying to go after our
    technology, as you mentioned with regards to a recent espionage
    case where a researcher was charged regarding data center
    plans, I think they are going after that cutting-edge
    technology. They want to--they cannot independently replicate
    it. And so, they want to steal our IP and build it there in the
    short term to be able to catch up.
        These numbers are not just a mirror reflection of their
    investments in R&D. These are also a reflection of how they
    have exploited our open system.
        Senator Barrasso. Ms. Fu, he talked about the targeted
    researcher for military activities, and if you follow the long
    history of Chairman Mao, his efforts when he was on Stalin's
    payroll were to try to get the nuclear weapons, and they fast-
    forwarded the technology to him. When Stalin was attacked
    during World War II, his goal was then to try to work with the
    United States to get the nuclear weapons. I mean, all of the
    issues have been a militarization of China.
        So you know, in 2020, the Hoover Institution released a
    169-page report. I know you are familiar with it. It is titled
    ``Global Engagement: Rethinking Risk in the Research
    Enterprise.''
        [The report referred to follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Senator Barrasso. The report states that a group of
    universities in China, known as the Seven Sons of National
    Defense, tying this into the military, operate as prime
    pathways for harvesting U.S. research and diverting it to
    military applications. Can you please explain why the
    Department still collaborates with researchers at the Seven
    Sons of National Defense?
        Ms. Fu. So I will say research security is an issue that I
    have long thought about and the Department has been extremely
    focused on since the Manhattan Project. I personally worked on
    research security policy in the last Administration at the
    Office of Science and Technology Policy. So this is an area
    that is critically important for our continued national
    competitiveness.
        DOE, as a government agency--we do not have any bilateral,
    ongoing cooperation with Seven Sons institutions. We are aware
    and very clear-eyed about the risks of China's military-civil
    fusion policies. And that is why we have a managed research
    environment within the fence lines at the DOE National Labs
    when it comes to our science and technology risk matrix, the
    foreign national access screenings that we do, as well as our
    ban on foreign government-sponsored talent recruitment plan
    participation.
        Senator Barrasso. So, Dr. Kaushik, you mentioned the Seven
    Sons of National Defense in your testimony. What is your
    opinion? Should the Department just cut all ties along these
    lines, or is there further----
        Dr. Kaushik. Certainly, I think no researcher being funded
    by any taxpayer dollars should be collaborating with any
    researcher at Sevens Sons of National Defense.
        Senator Barrasso. So what are several things that the
    Department of Energy could do better to protect advanced
    computing research?
        Dr. Kaushik. I am so glad you asked that question because I
    think there are a lot of things that the DOE has been doing
    that are ahead of the curve compared to other agencies, and in
    fact, I have to give them credit for that--the recently
    released ``Guidance for Implementing National Security
    Presidential Memorandum 33 (NSPM-33) by the OSTP. DOE is
    already implementing things that are ahead of that.
        Now, what more can we be doing? And I think this doesn't
    just apply to DOE, but to the broader research ecosystem. I
    think we need to increase transparency here, right? We must be
    more forthright with the researchers about the concrete risks
    to our national security. Currently, we just often present
    warnings or hypothetical scenarios of illicit technological
    transfer, which is insufficient to convey the gravity of the
    situation. These are researchers and scientists. These are
    generally well-intentioned people who are analytical, who want
    to see more evidence to be able to see what the stakes are. An
    example I will give you is the MD Anderson case, which was
    about the NIH. They provided a clear example of a security
    breach, where an email explicitly directed the transfer of
    privileged information. And that letter was published openly.
    So I think such concrete examples are more persuasive than
    generalities.
        The other thing I would say is, we need to clearly
    delineate basic research environments--our research
    environments more generally, right? We need to reassess the
    classification of basic research. We need to establish clearer
    boundaries between open and secure environments. Now, for
    example, in the Air Force Research Lab in Rome, they have a
    facility outside the gate to interact with universities and
    others, whereas, everything behind the gate is doing secure
    research. Now, DOE does a lot of that at a lot of labs, but
    that needs to be the practice. That needs to be the norm.
        It is not clear to me why NSF funded hypersonics research,
    for instance, which is considered basic research. I would be
    all for having basic research open if it was truly basic
    research, but that is not basic. And I think that is something
    that we need to clarify.
        And then, I would say that very specific to DOE, we need to
    strengthen the protection of commercially relevant
    technologies. Now, a critical area that requires our attention
    is the protection of research that is conducted in partnership
    with commercial entities. National labs and universities
    frequently engage in projects with significant commercial value
    through mechanisms like strategic partnership opportunities or
    user facilities agreements. Now, current policies, whether it
    be the NSPM-33 or even the CHIPS Act, they do not adequately
    address the security concerns associated with these public-
    private partnerships. We need to develop more comprehensive
    guidelines and authorities to manage these partnerships
    effectively to ensure proper safeguards there. And I think
    this, again, extends beyond DOE facilities, but also the
    universities that are collaborating with major technology and
    pharmaceutical companies.
        Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
        Mr. Chairman, my time is expired. I just wanted to comment
    on the last question you asked about the disposable power.
        The Chairman. Right. Dispatchable.
        Senator Barrasso. And you know--I'm sorry, dispatchable
    power. The magazine, the Economist, says that, kind of, since
    the Paris Climate Accords, the U.S. has taken out about 150
    gigawatts of coal-related power. China and India, 250 more
    gigawatts on. Why do they need it? Because of the technology,
    the AI, all of those things. The New York Times says five years
    from now the amount of energy that we are going to need in this
    country is equal to adding an entirely new California to the
    grid. Why? Because of this very reason. So we seem to be
    woefully behind in our ability to produce the power that we are
    going to need and are taking down, right now, power that can be
    used and needed because of the attacks from the environmental
    communities, but we need to be very clear-eyed about what is
    happening globally and what China is trying to do in terms of
    trying to become the military, the economic, and the
    technological superpower of the world. So thank you, Mr.
    Chairman.
        The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
        Senator Hickenlooper.
        Senator Hickenlooper. First, let me thank each of you for
    your service and being involved in this. Mr. Chair, I
    appreciate you for calling this meeting.
        Let me start. Dr. Kaushik, AI obviously can improve
    efficiency and reliability of our electric grid in predicting
    and managing supply and demand. While we work toward that goal,
    however, the National Electric Reliability Cooperation, as well
    as the Bravo Group, projected, as we have just been discussing,
    significant increases in demand on the grid in part from data
    centers that are training and running these AI systems. So Dr.
    Kaushik, how much do we know, and what more information do we
    need about what our benefit is here? In other words, how much
    more electricity will AI and these emerging technologies
    require, and how can we begin to estimate the benefits and the
    savings in energy that they will provide us?
        Dr. Kaushik. Thank you, Senator. I think predicting this
    future demand is going to be challenging, one, because we don't
    have the insights into proprietary plans of companies for
    training new models, or sometimes they have speculative,
    unfulfilled requests for our new capabilities from data center
    vendors. But what we do know is that the International Energy
    Agency has predicted that the electricity demand for data
    centers will double by 2026--the global demand. And I think
    data, even if it does not double, even if it is just, you know,
    increasing by ten percent, we cannot take that risk. We need to
    be prepared for that. I think, as Dr. Gleason mentioned, that
    there are some reports that predict that 10 percent of global
    energy usage will be by AI data centers.
        I think we have to reduce that uncertainty, and I believe
    DOE is already working on that as part of a mandate they have
    from the Energy Act of 2020, but I think overall, the facts of
    the matter on the ground are that in your home state, for
    instance, in Colorado, a hyperscaler recently invested in
    geothermal energy west of the Rockies. I think the private
    sector is seeing this, and they are like, we need to invest in
    the capabilities. Just this week, on Oracle's earnings call,
    they shared that they are willing to build a one-gigawatt data
    center and they have started the process on that. And these are
    things that companies are actually investing in, and I think
    that is a clear signal for why we need to be prepared.
        Now, what needs to happen to reduce that uncertainty? I
    think AI can help there. We have all these earnings reports
    coming out. We have all these announcements from companies. We
    have the GIS data. We can use that to better reduce our
    uncertainty on how much power demand will be in particular
    regions. It may not be an issue nationally, but it's certainly
    creating strain on particular regions like Northern Virginia,
    for instance.
        Senator Hickenlooper. A lot of regions, I agree completely.
        Ms. Fu, the National Institute for Standards and Technology
    (NIST) has established the U.S. AI Safety Institute to work
    with government agencies and the private sector to develop
    metrics and benchmarks and tests that ensure AI systems are
    both safe and reliable. And as we have been hearing today, DOE
    is home to incredible technical expertise, a world-class
    computing infrastructure, valuable scientific data that
    positions the Department to be, really, a leader in all this AI
    research and development. Ms. Fu, could you describe how DOE
    collaborates with NIST and NSF and other agencies, but that
    collaboration to advance AI safety research which, I think, you
    know, we are getting the cart before the horse here a little
    bit.
        Ms. Fu. Thanks so much for that question. Certainly, AI
    safety and security is of key importance for DOE and for the
    country. This is something that the AI executive order speaks
    to. We have been coordinating with commerce very closely. We
    are working on an MOU with the AI Safety Institute so that we
    can bring the expertise at DOE to bear on these questions of AI
    safety and security. One thing I will note is that our National
    Nuclear Security Administration has been focused on this issue,
    even before the issuance of the AI executive order because of
    how important it is to our mission, and they have been doing
    evaluations of open models and proprietary models for some time
    now. And we think that there is expertise that we have
    developed through that process that we hope to bring to bear in
    our cooperation with the AI Safety Institute.
        With NSF, we have been working very closely to try and see
    where we can align some of our workforce efforts. We talked a
    little bit about that before, about how we can draw the line a
    little bit more closely between the workforce efforts they are
    doing at universities all across the country and the resources
    and training and capabilities we have at our national labs. We
    also are co-funding a research coordination network on privacy-
    enhancing technologies because we think that this is an
    incredibly important field of work that is important to
    coordinate on.
        Senator Hickenlooper. Of course, absolutely.
        And I figure there is an opportunity here for the White
    House Office of Science and Technology Policy to begin to help
    coordinate all these different efforts, because there does need
    to be some sort of, you know, the hive mentality has to be
    directed properly and coordinated.
        Dr. Gleason, Colorado's Elevate Quantum recently received
    an award from the Department of Commerce to expand our--what we
    feel is the nation's leading quantum ecosystem, and Colorado
    companies, universities, and the workforce are determined and
    ready to build on this federal investment to create quantum-
    enabled technology that solves real-world problems in
    navigation, communications, computing, et cetera. Quantum
    computers and classical computers are most effective at solving
    different and distinct problems. So how will DOE bring together
    the different advanced computing technologies, including
    quantum and classical computers, to solve these, the most
    challenging science and technology questions?
        Dr. Gleason. So, very good question. It's a very important
    question. I think what I will start with is that it comes down
    to heterogeneity of computer systems. So what I mean by that
    is, bringing different computing technologies together to bear
    that can attack different parts of a problem where they are the
    most efficient technology to attack that piece of the overall
    challenge. And I will just use history as an example. So high-
    performance computing used to be CPU-focused only. Then, they
    became more heterogenous by adding GPUs.
        Senator Hickenlooper. Right.
        Dr. Gleason. And GPUs are very good at AI training, et
    cetera. CPU is good at modeling and simulations. So there is an
    example of where heterogeneous computing can be used to attack
    different types of problems, different parts of a problem.
        I think the future--one of the things that DOE and the
    national labs are very focused on are what are the next
    versions of heterogenous computing that are on the horizon. And
    you have already mentioned one. We talked a lot about quantum
    recently in this hearing. Quantum computers are very good at
    solving optimization problems, for example. Logistics problems.
    They are very good at simulating molecular dynamics or
    chemistry because of the nature of the quantum mechanics that
    are used to drive the quantum computers. So integrating
    classical HPC with future quantum computers, I think, is a
    really important thing that the Department and the national
    labs need to look at, and that is a big challenge. How do you
    integrate these very different types of architectures that run
    with very different software stacks and software platforms? How
    do they connect together? How do they communicate? And how do
    you make a quantum co-processor, for example, that lives in a
    data center with a frontier supercomputer and takes on some of
    these challenging parts of the problem, probably in a more
    energy efficient way and probably faster? Other technologies--
    neuromorphic computing is another good example of another
    heterogeneous option. Neuromorphic co-processors can also
    tackle unique challenges.
        And so, and then, I think there are computational
    architectures that we haven't even thought of yet, and the
    Department of Energy is exploring and the labs are exploring
    what those might be, but I think increasing the heterogeneity
    is one really strong path that DOE and the labs should follow.
        Senator Hickenlooper. I think we are going to need several
    more hearings to really explore this thoroughly.
        Senator King [presiding]. On behalf of the Chairman,
    Senator Hawley.
        Senator Hawley. Thank you very much, Senator King. Thanks
    to all the witnesses for being here.
        Dr. Gleason, if I could just start with you. I just want to
    start with a question about Oak Ridge National Lab, since you
    are here from that institution. You have worked there for more
    than 30 years, is that right? Thirty-four I think you said in
    your opening statement. Do you mind if I ask, do you happen to
    live in the area as well?
        Dr. Gleason. I do.
        Senator Hawley. Here is why I am asking. You are probably
    familiar with the role of Oak Ridge in the Manhattan Project, I
    bet. Is that fair to say?
        Dr. Gleason. I am, yes.
        Senator Hawley. Could you just give us, for the benefit of
    those who are watching the hearing, could you just give us a
    thumbnail sketch of what Oak Ridge did for the country, to the
    extent that you know it? It doesn't need to be detailed, but
    just give us a synopsis of what Oak Ridge did for the country
    during the Manhattan Project?
        Dr. Gleason. Yes, I mean, Oak Ridge, you know, was stood up
    in the early 40s to try to help build the nuclear material that
    would power the bomb. So we built the world's first
    continuously operating nuclear reactor, called the Graphite
    Reactor, which is part of that process. The Graphite Reactor is
    no longer operational but you can go look at it. It is a
    wonderful tour stop when you come to Oak Ridge, but we are very
    proud of our roots in the Manhattan Project and it continues to
    inform our national security mission, part of what we do. We do
    Office of Science work. We do national security work. But our
    roots in the Manhattan Project--one of the big areas that came
    out of that was our materials science strength. And we have a
    huge pillar and strength in materials science that's roots go
    back to that Manhattan Project and Oak Ridge's contributions.
        Senator Hawley. Very good, thank you for that.
        I asked because Oak Ridge was such a critical part of the
    Manhattan Project, as you say, and the Oppenheimer movie of
    this last year, I think, raised awareness about what that
    project looked like and how it got started and the importance
    of Los Alamos, but really at Oak Ridge, you know, the
    government produced plutonium and then there were other uranium
    processing sites around the country, including in my home State
    of Missouri, in St. Louis. And as you probably know, in both
    Oak Ridge and St. Louis, despite the fantastic vital
    contributions of those processing plants, facilities, and labs
    to our national security, the nuclear waste was not properly
    disposed of in either place, and in Oak Ridge, the effects on
    the community have been severe. And I just want to quote from
    another one of your fellow residents there in the Oak Ridge
    area--Tanvi Kardile is her name. She is the coordinator for the
    Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, who has said that, ``It
    is time that people in Oak Ridge receive compensation for being
    exposed to radiation from nuclear waste.'' And now, Oak Ridge,
    as we speak, is a Superfund site, and that is good. It is well
    long overdue that it be cleaned up, but not only should it be
    cleaned up, those folks, your neighbors in the area who have
    been exposed to nuclear radiation over the years, ought to be
    compensated for it, just like in the city and region of St.
    Louis.
        And I bring all of this up because this body, to its
    credit, passed legislation that would compensate the good folks
    of Oak Ridge and the St. Louis area and other similar nuclear
    sites and other folks who were exposed to downwind testing
    during the Manhattan era and the Cold War era. We passed that
    legislation by 69 votes. And I look across the aisle, Senator
    King voted for that. I appreciate that, Senator. And many--most
    of my colleagues, it was a huge vote. It's now in the House of
    Representatives. And I just, having you here from Oak Ridge,
    considering everything Oak Ridge and the entire region there
    that you work at has done for this country, I couldn't let the
    opportunity pass to thank the good people of Oak Ridge, to
    thank the scientists that you work with, to thank that
    community, and also to call on my colleagues in the House to
    pass this legislation. Compensate these good Americans, who
    bore the brunt of our effort in the Second World War and the
    Cold War, which we won because of the effort of people at Oak
    Ridge and in St. Louis, and the residents who weren't
    themselves scientists but lived in the area and have suffered
    the effects of the nuclear radiation--they are proud to be
    Americans and to have served in this effort. They deserve
    compensation, however, just as they deserve to have their
    communities cleaned up.
        So thank you, Dr. Gleason, for testifying about the
    significance of that.
        Dr. Kaushik, if I could just come to you in my remaining
    moments here, just about the dangers posed by China and AI. You
    highlighted in your opening statement--your written statement--
    the 2017 National Intelligence Law in the PRC requiring Chinese
    citizens and organizations to share information with state
    intelligence. Can you just speak to the dangers of American AI
    companies doing business with China, investing in Chinese AI,
    partnering with the Chinese businesses, whether overtly state-
    controlled or not? Can you speak to that a little bit?
        Dr. Kaushik. Senator, thank you for that question. I think
    it hits right at the heart of the argument on economic security
    and national security. I think American businesses doing
    business in the PRC--at one point, our government promoted them
    to do it, and that is okay, like, that was our understanding of
    the PRC back then. Things have changed. And today, if a company
    goes and invests in China, what they are doing is inherently
    supporting their economy, inherently supporting an
    authoritarian regime. They don't know whether what they are
    investing in is also fueling slave labor in Xinjiang. I think
    that is an important consideration for any American company who
    wants to invest in other countries--they have to take that into
    account.
        We have to be realistic about what is happening. We cannot
    live in a dreamland of the China we want to operate with. We
    don't control that. We control what is the China that we are
    operating with.
        Senator Hawley. I am so glad to hear that from you, and I
    hope that every corporate CEO will listen and take to heart the
    words you just said. I asked partly because I just had the
    opportunity to talk with an Intel executive who was testifying
    at a different committee. Intel, of course, is investing
    billions in China, and in Chinese AI, in particular. And this
    executive argued to me--this was just 48 hours ago--argued to
    me that this is of great benefit to the United States. There
    are no security concerns with it at all. It's really good for
    America. But the telling thing was, you mentioned the Uyghurs--
    Xinjiang Province. He would not condemn the persecution of the
    Uyghurs. He said, ``you know, well, I just--I can't speak to
    that. It's unclear if there really is any forced labor in
    China.'' This, I think, is, frankly, the moral hazard that our
    companies face if they do business in China. If they find
    themselves compromised by the PRC, they are effectively--they
    run the risk of supporting slave labor, of helping the Chinese
    AI program in a way that is materially to our detriment, but is
    also, frankly, just morally wrong.
        So thank you for your clarity on that. And I just think
    these companies, these so-called American companies, it's time
    that they actually did something for the values that we cherish
    as Americans, and ending slave labor ought to be at the very
    top of that list. And I, frankly, am sick of these companies
    taking billions--Intel is getting billions--$8.5 billion--just
    approved to go to Intel under recent laws that this body has
    passed. And yet, they are turning around and spending billions
    in China, and won't condemn slave labor--in fact, they may be
    benefiting from it. And I just think that's wrong.
        I see my time is expired. I have a couple more questions
    for you, Dr. Kaushik, just about safeguarding our national
    labs. So I will give those to you as written questions.
        Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        The Chairman [presiding]. We might have a second round too,
    if you can stay, okay?
        Senator Cortez Masto.
        Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you. I want to thank the
    Chairman and Ranking Member for this conversation. I love this
    chart, by the way, thank you.
        I understand one of my colleagues talked about it, but I am
    just going to put a finer point on this because I understand
    that this conversation just highlights the fact that a rapid
    increase in projected electricity demand is happening because
    of AI and because of data centers. And I know this in Nevada
    because we actually have both happening here, and we are a
    major hub for data centers. You just had conversations with
    Switch in my state on this very topic. So I am very interested
    in how we address that demand. And I think it is everybody's
    responsibility to figure this out if we want to lead in this
    country in emerging technology, right? So if you have any
    additional information, I would love to hear it, on how we
    address and be a part of the solution here to address that
    emerging demand as well.
        Ms. Fu.
        Ms. Fu. Yes, this is something, as I mentioned earlier,
    something that the Department is laser-focused on. And I think
    it is due to our role in leadership in advanced computing,
    understanding what the energy needs of AI will be, but also in
    our role with the energy part of our name. We see an enormous
    opportunity here. It is true that energy demand is growing. It
    is doubling. Energy demand from data centers is doubling from a
    very low base. However, it is a local issue that we need to
    really get our heads around. We think that DOE has a really
    unique role here in helping to convene stakeholders. This is
    something that the Secretary has been thinking through. She has
    charged her Secretary of Energy Advisory Board to look at this
    issue and they recently came out with recommendations. We would
    be happy to share them. We are starting to implement and look
    through those recommendations to see what we can do. We will be
    convening stakeholders around the country in areas of high
    load-growth. This is going to be an effort over the next
    several months.
        We do think that there are things that we can do now. And I
    think part of the challenge with AI load-growth is that it's
    both a very large load and the expectations are very fast, you
    know, this large load is going to come online in the next--now,
    through the next few years. And so, we have many different
    kinds of technologies that we are looking at that are going out
    to 2030. We are doing everything that we can to look at what we
    can unlock now.
        Permitting, of course, is one piece of that. We actually
    have an AI and permitting pilot that we have already launched
    to see how we can use AI to expedite and streamline the
    permitting process. And one of the things that we have been
    able to do is to take the entire corpus of NEPA documents,
    which normally go in a huge binder and they get put on the
    shelf, and make them AI-ready, digitize them, and make them
    available to the entire scientific community and to industry to
    develop new tools to help with this process.
        But we know that there are near-term needs, mid-term needs,
    and longer-term needs, and DOE is focused on all of those.
        Senator Cortez Masto. And I know you are, because of your
    footprint in Nevada, by the way. And so, thank you. My only ask
    is, and you talked a little bit about it, you invite industry
    in to have them as part of the solution. I talk with the CEO of
    Switch regularly, and I just talked to him about this issue.
    They have ideas.
        Ms. Fu. Yes.
        Senator Cortez Masto. Right. And so, they should be part of
    this discussion.
        Ms. Fu. Absolutely.
        Senator Cortez Masto. Nevada is a perfect place to have
    this discussion because of DOE's footprint, but also there is
    this nexus between energy and water and the challenges we have
    there. There is also, in Nevada, a large footprint just of the
    Federal Government that should be partnering with the state and
    private sector in figuring this out. And for that reason, I am
    hoping DOE is also partnering with the Department of Interior.
    You talked a little bit about permitting, but it's Department
    of Interior that has/owns a lot of the land, right? So I am
    hoping that--and can you talk about that? Is there that
    partnership that is happening with other federal agencies,
    including the Department of Interior?
        Ms. Fu. Yes, there is a lot of focus on this. We are
    working through the CEQ that is convening the interagency body.
    I will say the AI and permitting pilot, we are working with the
    13 agencies in the permitting council on this issue. And we
    recently, through Savannah River National Lab, issued an RFI
    that looks at potentially siting data centers, even on federal
    land.
        Senator Cortez Masto. Okay.
        Ms. Fu. So we are looking at all of these issues, looking
    at all of these options. We understand the urgency of the
    issue.
        Senator Cortez Masto. Okay.
        And the only other stakeholder that must--must be at the
    table is our state and local folks, right, because we manage
    our economic development, our population growth, our needs with
    the Federal Government because the Federal Government owns most
    of the land in the state. So I am hoping that you pull our
    folks in as well in this conversation. It is crucial. Thank
    you.
        You talked a little bit about the workforce that we need
    for the future. What else should we be aware of here in
    Congress that we have to focus on, particularly for that
    workforce of the future that is going to kind of lead and be a
    part of these emerging technologies? Anything that we didn't
    talk about that I need to know, or we need to know?
        Dr. Kaushik. Happy to take that on. I think, Senator, that
    is an incredibly important question that is at the heart of
    this conversation. The population of the PRC is four times
    ours.
        Senator Cortez Masto. Right.
        Dr. Kaushik. They are producing four times as many
    bachelor's degree holders in STEM, twice as many master's and
    twice as many Ph.D.s. This is not a competition that we faced
    in the Cold War. The population of the Soviet Union was nearly
    as much as ours. The economy was far below, and here the
    population is much higher, much more talent to tap into, and
    they have these sophisticated programs and they are trying to
    bring more talent into their country. I will give you an
    example. They have this national innovation-driven development
    strategy, which aims for the PRC to become a key hub for global
    high-end talent by 2050. Now, they have changed their visa and
    permanent residency programs. They have established a
    ``thousand foreign talents'' program, alongside the Thousand
    Talents Program, to recruit foreign nationals to China. And I
    think we need to have a talent strategy here.
        What does our talent strategy look like? DOE has some
    fellowships for U.S. nationals. I think NSF has their own
    fellowships. Agencies have their work cut out here, but at the
    same time, there is a big chokehold that only this body can
    solve, and that is--I will quote the Singaporean leader, Lee
    Kuan Yew, who said when he was asked whether he thought China
    would overtake the United States in the 21st century, he said,
    ``No, because the United States has long attracted the world's
    best and brightest.'' He said that the United States fosters a
    diverse culture of creativity, and China will struggle to do
    so. Despite having 1.3 billion people to tap into, the United
    States has seven billion to tap into because we can assemble a
    rest-of-the-world team. But I think you see that in AI today.
    Sixty-five percent of the top AI startups have at least one
    person as a founder or co-founder who came here through legal
    immigration means. I think that has to be an important part of
    the conversation on workforce.
        So we need an all-of-the-above approach here to be able to
    match the numbers that they are putting out in STEM Ph.D.s and
    STEM master's and bachelor's.
        Senator Cortez Masto. And then finally, and I agree, but
    that can be done, Dr. Kaushik, with what your caution was
    before of how do we secure it? How do we ensure that we are
    securing the technology, right, for our use in our labs? There
    is a way to balance it and you believe that can be done?
        Dr. Kaushik. Absolutely. There are, you know, the
    guardrails I talk about, most of them are objectively laid out
    in what we call the National Security Decision Directive 189,
    which was issued during the Reagan Administration during the
    Cold War, about protecting American technological advantage.
    The National Academies also did a report in 2022 at the
    direction of this body on protecting U.S. technological
    advantage, and they said that it is possible. Now, what do we
    need to do to actually get there? I think we have to recognize
    the competition is a bit different. You know, we cannot
    continue funding hypersonics research as basic research and
    saying that we will make that openly accessible, right? We have
    to classify the research when it needs to be classified. We
    have to have that conversation.
        A risk matrix cannot be a silver bullet. We have to have a
    prior conversation on what is okay to be made openly accessible
    and what needs to be behind closed doors, who should have
    access to certain research and who should not. And I think we
    need to be very careful about whether it is even people from
    our partner and allied countries to be able to have access to
    those, you know, those technologies that we are researching
    that are of a sensitive nature. It's not just about preventing
    PRC access to those technologies. Sometimes we just don't want
    the fact that we are developing those technologies disclosed. I
    think there is a way we can balance that, and I think NSPM-33
    does a really good job at it. It was produced by the Trump
    Administration as an all-of-government approach. The Biden
    Administration, to its credit, has continued working on it.
    Despite OSTP's massive delays in releasing implementation
    guidance, it is the right approach. The Trump Administration
    also issued the Presidential Proclamation 10043, which bars the
    entry of certain Chinese graduate and postgraduate students who
    have ties to military-civil fusion institutions. And I think
    that is taking a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer to this and
    that is the right way to go about it.
        Senator Cortez Masto. Okay, thank you.
        The Chairman. Senator King.
        Senator King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        As we have been sitting here, a few minutes ago, I asked a
    question of ChatGPT-4, and the prompt was ``give me a poem in
    the style of Robert W. Service about the U.S. Senate Committee
    on Energy and Natural Resources.'' Okay, Robert W. Service is
    my favorite poet. He wrote about the Gold Rush, and wrote ``The
    Cremation of Sam McGee'' and ``The Shooting of Dan McGrew.''
    Anyway, that was what I asked. In three seconds, this is what I
    got back:
        ``In the hallowed halls of Congress where the mighty stand
    so tall, there is a group that tends the nation's needs, its
    energy and all. The Senate committee gathers round with purpose
    in their eyes, for the fires of coal and sun and wind they seek
    to harmonize. Old Service might have marveled, for their work
    is just as bold as the gold rush tales he spun so well of lands
    both harsh and cold. They wrestle with the power lines, the
    drilling, and the frack, the forests and the oceans deep and
    what they give us back. Oh, the Senator from Texas . . .'' and
    by the way, this proves AI isn't always right, there is no
    senator from Texas on this committee, ``. . . with a mind on
    oil's flow, speaks of wealth beneath the earth and profits yet
    to grow . . .'' listen to this: ``. . . but across the room a
    voice rings clear from Maine's wild rocky shore, there is wind
    upon the sea my friend, we must demand much more. The coal
    fields of Wyoming, the pipelines out of sight, they spar with
    solar panels shining clean and bright, and as they hash their
    quarrels out with power in debate, the future of the nation's
    grid they strive to navigate.''
        Isn't this amazing? This was three seconds. It continues:
    ``. . . yet all the while the rivers run, the mountain stands
    so high, the forests whisper ancient tales beneath the open
    sky, and those who sit and legislate with duty on their chest
    know nature's gift is fleeting and they must do their best. So
    let them weigh the costs and gain. Let compromise be found, for
    in the hands of those who lead the nation's fate is bound. And
    like the miner seeking gold and Service's rugged lore, the
    Senate digs for answers deep on nature's precious shore.''
        That is what AI can do, which I think is absolutely
    astounding, but the fact that it made a mistake, I think, is
    also a cautionary tale.
        Okay, Senator Barrasso was talking about the electricity
    issue and the coming problems, and that is one of the reasons
    we are supporting--I don't know if you know, but two weeks ago
    we reported out a comprehensive permitting bill in order to
    unleash the power, particularly of renewables, because without
    transmission we are not going to have those resources.
        Okay, one question on quantum computing and advanced
    computing, and I don't want to pursue this too deeply, but I
    want to be sure, Ms. Fu, that we are not duplicating. There are
    other people in the U.S. Government working on this problem and
    I just want to be sure that there is coordination, and you
    don't have to go into any detail, but assure me that you know
    what is going on in other agencies and that we are doing this,
    because this is an expensive proposition, that we are not
    duplicating and overlapping because of competing jurisdictions.
        Ms. Fu. We are not duplicating. We are working closely with
    the White House National Quantum Coordination Office, and
    working closely with other agencies on this issue. And I think
    what we talked about earlier around AI, you know, and where DOE
    plays a role is around developing the capability. And so, the
    foundries that we are developing, the testbeds, the different
    kinds of user access programs, these are things that only DOE
    can do. We work with other agencies to build up the broader
    ecosystem, but the large-scale science and the facility side of
    this issue is something that is a DOE strength.
        Senator King. Well, please keep an eye on that issue.
        Ms. Fu. Absolutely.
        Senator King. And in the context of this Committee, are
    there ways that AI can assist us in the more efficient
    allocation of power, the more efficient running of the grid?
    There is a lot of inefficiency on the grid today, and we are
    developing what are called GETs--grid-enhancing technologies. I
    think that a complex system like the grid, and by the way, we
    need to distinguish between power and the grid, between
    capacity and the wires. But can AI be helpful to us in more
    efficiently managing the grid?
        Ms. Fu. It can, and I think just taking it back to the poem
    that you wrote with ChatGPT earlier, I think that is a really
    good example. ChatGPT and all of the commercial large language
    models were trained on human-generated information off the
    entirety of the internet. And the kinds of things that we are
    talking about in our FASST proposal are not training on the
    internet. It's not training human-generated data. It is
    training on scientific data where we can trust the provenance
    of that data and it can follow the laws of math or biology or
    physics. And so, when we look at the grid and we look at the
    things that we are going to need, and that is a very, very
    high-consequence use-case, this is lights on or lights off. We
    need to 100 percent have trust in where the data is coming from
    to train this and what----
        Senator King. I am assuming it's trustworthy data, my point
    is, analyzing massive data about how the grid is operating will
    enable us to operate it more efficiently. Is that correct?
        Ms. Fu. Yes, we think that there is a huge use-case on
    using AI to look at how we control massive systems like the
    electric grid.
        Senator King. Thank you.
        Final point, and we have touched on this--we just did. Dr.
    Kaushik, how much talent are we losing because of our not-very-
    functional immigration system and, you know, the quote from
    Lee, Kuan Yew, who is a genius, is very appropriate, but my
    sense is it used to be a lot of foreign students would come to
    the U.S., they would get a graduate degree from Stanford or
    Notre Dame or NYU and they would stay. Now they are leaving.
    Now we are making it harder for them to stay. How do we open up
    this system safely? I understand there are security concerns,
    but my sense is we are losing a lot of talent.
        Dr. Kaushik. Certainly, Senator. I think there was a recent
    study that was done which found that over 50 percent of AI
    Ph.D. graduates who leave the country cite that as the reason
    why they are leaving the country.
        Senator King. Because of the immigration laws?
        Dr. Kaushik. Yes.
        Senator King. So there is a pile of talent who we are
    chasing away?
        Dr. Kaushik. Correct. And many of them are from nations
    which we consider as partners and allies. I think that is
    something that we have to recognize, that there is----
        Senator King. So we are doing this not only to Chinese
    people, or Russian people, but we are doing it to Australians
    or people from France or Germany.
        Dr. Kaushik. Correct, yes, Senator.
        Senator King. That is just crazy.
        Dr. Kaushik. That is totally the case. In fact, the CCP
    recognizes this, and I am going to give you some quotes
    directly from them where commenting on the U.S. retention of
    Chinese STEM students, I will just say, the head of CCP's
    Central Talent Work Coordination Group complained that the
    number of talents lost in China ranks first in the world. But
    now, if you look at their data--granted all the issues in their
    data--the fraction of the Chinese students who are returning
    home is increasing despite long-term stay rates. If you look at
    students from the PRC who graduated from U.S. universities in
    2015, over 90 percent of them are still in the United States,
    but that number is declining overall, especially at the
    undergraduate level, it's declining a lot.
        A state-run consulting firm wrote in an AI policy white
    paper in China that U.S. restrictions on immigration have
    provided China opportunities to bolster its ranks of high-end
    talent.
        Senator King. Brilliant.
        Dr. Kaushik. These are direct quotes from the Chinese
    Communist Party.
        Senator King. Shouldn't we--assuming sufficient security
    analysis--shouldn't we just staple a green card to diplomas?
        Dr. Kaushik. I think, Senator, that is a worthy
    consideration. I would say that we do need security provisions
    attached, like some of the provisions that were under
    consideration here in the CHIPS and Science Act, for instance,
    of applying sanctions to people who are found guilty of
    economic or industrial espionage or academic espionage. I think
    that is something that we should be----
        Senator King. We can deal with that and that is a small
    percentage.
        Dr. Kaushik. Correct.
        Senator King. In terms of gaining a huge amount of talent
    that will drive this country into the future.
        Dr. Kaushik. I think what you are saying is absolutely
    right, and this is what Bill Evanina, who was a former
    counterintelligence chief in the previous administration, also
    said that we bring about 350,000 Chinese students here every
    year. We have very liberal student visa policies for them.
    About one in a thousand of them are bad-faith actors, and so we
    need that scalpel-based approach to remove that one out of a
    thousand rather than shutting the door on all 350,000. And I
    think that is the right approach that the Trump Administration
    took with its Presidential Proclamation 10043 and NSPM-33 and
    the likes. I think there are obviously still a lot of issues
    that we need to deal with and that can be done. At the same
    time, we--I think it was Senator Cantwell who said during the
    CHIPS and Science Act that either we recognize this problem
    today or we will wake up in ten years and China will be ahead
    in everything and we will have no time to work on it.
        Senator King. Thank you.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        The Chairman. Thank you.
        Senator Murkowski.
        Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you to
    those of you who have been part of the conversation here this
    morning.
        Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for your leadership and
    inviting me to join you with the Department of Energy AI Act
    that we are working to advance to make sure that DOE has the
    tools that are necessary to really leverage some of the
    benefits here of AI. I look forward to being able to advance
    that and also to be supportive of the measure that Senator
    Daines is introducing, the DOE Quantum Leadership Act of 2024,
    I think all good measures that just add to the toolbox here.
        Senator King, I sit in just amazement of what you shared.
    Although, I will say that the ``The Shooting of Dan McGrew''
    was still one of Robert Service's finer pieces of work, and I
    think he would have been offended by the----
        Senator King. ``A bunch of the boys were . . .''
        Senator Murkowski. ``. . . whooping it up in the Malamute
    Saloon.'' Yeah, we could go on, and I will regale you with my
    Robert Service. It's one of my favorites, so you made me smile
    here this morning.
        I want to ask a little bit more about application of these
    technologies. There has been a lot of focus in the Committee
    here on national defense, competitiveness issues, power grid
    resilience, and as Senator King mentioned, efficiencies. Talk
    to me a little bit about how we can utilize these technologies
    in other fields, whether it's resource exploration, disaster
    prediction, climate resilience, adaptation planning. Let me
    share with you--I had a meeting just yesterday with some
    scientists from Woodwell, focused on what they call the
    Permafrost Pathways. And it's essentially utilizing available
    mapping to understand and determine where we have greater
    vulnerabilities, whether it is with releases of carbon, as we
    are seeing the permafrost melt or just the application in
    whether or not you would even think to put a community or a
    structure there, and a lot of discussion about where the data
    is. As scientists, are they able to access the public
    repositories? You know, BLM does certain analysis, or a service
    in Alaska does analysis. What is available to them and how
    would their work be facilitated in other ways? And I think
    exactly about some of what we are talking about here.
        The other thing that I will ask you to think about and help
    me with, we had a deadly landslide in my hometown of Ketchikan
    just a few weeks ago. This is an area in a neighborhood where
    my family grew up, had the same house for 60 years, and not in
    an area that is prone to landslide, and yet, as we are seeing
    more intense weather, we are seeing these impacts in our
    communities that are really quite frightening. And so, we are
    asking what mapping have we done? What monitoring is going on
    in terms of precipitation?
        And we are told that, well, at the place that we were at
    the day of the landslide, the rainfall was somewhere between
    six and eight inches that day, whereas the weather monitoring
    station, which is right across--maybe a half a mile away, is
    less than two inches. Still a rainy day. And so, we are talking
    about--we have these tools that are out here, but who is able
    to communicate with who? And I am giving you a rambling open-
    ended question, but I have a lot of problems that we are
    looking to solve on the disaster side, or just preparedness
    awareness, but also with being able to utilize some of the
    public data that is out there as we are trying to assess is
    there greater potential for a critical mineral in this area,
    and do we need to do the actual drilling or can we extrapolate
    from these tools and these technologies?
        Have at it.
        Ms. Fu. Thank you so much. And these are all super-
    important questions and real application spaces for AI. And I
    will just give a few examples of where this might be useful.
    Climate modeling and environmental research--you mentioned
    earlier the ability to look at vast datasets from the Arctic
    region, including sensor and satellite data to understand
    permafrost thaw and changes in the ecosystem. This is work that
    PNNL and Oak Ridge are already engaged in.
        AI for energy resilience--this is an area where we look at
    how we can optimize energy systems for remote communities. And
    we know that NREL is doing quite a lot of work in that space
    where we can look at energy demand, plan out where storage
    should be and reduce dependence on costly diesel fuel. These
    are things that I think can be very impactful for everyday
    people.
        There is also, obviously, AI for infrastructure monitoring,
    and this is work that Sandia has underway, looking at AI to
    monitor critical infrastructure, like pipelines and
    transportation, especially in remote areas where it will be
    hard for people to go to regularly.
        So to your point around data, this is an incredibly
    important issue. We talked a little bit about what we are doing
    on AI and permitting data, especially NEPA data, making it AI-
    ready. I think it was millions and millions of pages that we
    were able to make AI-ready so that it could be used more
    broadly for tools and application development. I think there is
    an opportunity to do this across this entire spectrum, from
    climate data, energy data, the whole grid--the grid questions
    here--and knit them together. And that is part of what we are
    thinking about through FASST. How do we get all of the
    different stores of data--data we collect, as well as public
    data--and make them actually useful, because I think poems are
    great, and these tools that we have commercially available
    today are really great for efficiencies and they are really
    great for language, but the kinds of problems that we have are
    going to be hard scientific problems that will then need to be
    applied to real-world situations.
        Senator Murkowski. Well, I appreciate that, and I am
    thinking about the application to the Department of Defense.
    Right now, on Alaska's coastline, we have some older military
    assets that are greatly threatened by what we are seeing with
    coastal erosion. And you have to make decisions, expensive
    decisions about do we stay there, do we relocate, and you want
    to make sure that the decisions that you are making are going
    to be in place for more than just the next decade. It has to be
    more long-term, so, the tools that we have to put in place.
        Dr. Kaushik, you wanted to----
        Dr. Kaushik. Sure, Senator, I think that is exactly the
    kind of work we should be doing at the Federal Government level
    where it's not necessarily like the private sector has
    incentives to build those kinds of tools. They don't have the
    data. They don't have the sensitive data. I think, for
    instance, NOAA collects about a terabyte of data every day that
    nobody ever gets to see. I think that is something that we can
    be doing, but at the same time, there are some private-sector
    actors who are working on this, like NVIDIA developed a digital
    twin of the Earth, right? And what that allows them to do is
    conduct millions of simulations of extreme weather events,
    compared to what we can today do, which is like just about
    thousands of simulations to see, to better predict the weather.
        Another area where I think we need to think about what the
    national labs could be doing is, like the Pacific Northwest
    National Laboratory is working on this idea called Cloud Labs,
    right? We have changed dramatically how we work in every sector
    since the industrial revolution, but science has still stayed
    the same. You go into a lab, you prep your chemicals, you do it
    how you do it. A cloud lab allows you to automate how to do
    scientific discovery. You can run experiments at scale. They
    are more applicable. They can be run faster, with more
    precision. And I think the same goes with how we explore
    critical minerals. It's a very CapEx-heavy stage at the
    exploration level. And I think USGS has a program on that where
    you are using AI along with radar data to understand better
    what kinds of materials may be underneath the Earth.
        And I think all of those things, not necessarily--the
    private sector has near-term incentives to invest in or
    develop. And I think those are the kinds of things that
    generally people look to the Federal Government for.
        Senator Murkowski. Dr. Gleason.
        Dr. Gleason. I just wanted to touch on something Helena
    mentioned, which is the data problem, and you touched on it as
    well. Making sure that data is AI-ready is a huge undertaking.
    A lot of people underestimate the challenge. You know, you
    could have a lot of data, but it's not valuable until it is
    made AI-ready. It has to be organized. It has to be labeled in
    some cases, sometimes not, but it has to be ready to train an
    AI system. So there is a huge part of FASST which is to make
    data AI-ready, and public data, scientific data from the
    national labs, a very important challenge that's not the most
    exciting piece of the work, but it's really the most important
    because data is the fuel for the AI engine.
        The other thing I just wanted to mention, just as an
    example, is something we are doing in disaster response and
    disaster recovery is, Oak Ridge is stitching together satellite
    images from across the entire world and then mapping the actual
    building infrastructure from those images, in fact, to the
    point where we are predicting some of the materials that those
    buildings may be made of from the spectral reflections and the
    information in the satellite image. The cool thing about that
    is, now you can, if you see a disaster, predicted disaster,
    from a climate model or even a military situation, you can
    understand what the affects might be, and after it happens you
    can do a before and after comparison and decide where do I need
    to direct my emergency resources most effectively, most
    quickly, to save the most people, restore function, et cetera.
    So AI is a huge tool to help those kinds of things that are
    connected to some of the things you mentioned earlier.
        Senator Murkowski. Fascinating.
        Senator King [presiding]. On behalf of the Chairman, the
    distinguished former Governor and current Senator from the
    State of North Dakota.
        Senator Hoeven. Thanks, Governor, appreciate it.
        Thanks to all the witnesses for being here. And my question
    for all of you is, you know, there are probably a lot of
    metrics we use to measure AI. What are the most relevant
    metrics? For example, if we are saying, okay, how do we compare
    it to China or someone else in terms of where we are with AI,
    what are the metrics that we use to measure who is ahead and
    why it matters?
        And then my second question is going to be how do we really
    manage the security, not only for ourselves, but you know, how
    do we address the security issues for others that are
    developing AI, be it China or anyone else? And you know, you
    have this great workforce and you get them, you know, all
    trained up on this stuff and they develop it, and I am guessing
    there are a lot of folks in a lot of other countries that
    decide they want to hire them and are offering some pretty big
    wages and so forth to have them come over and it may be for
    malign purposes.
        So first, the metrics, how you measure them, why it's
    important, and then the security aspects, both for us here and
    for our adversaries and particularly regarding the workforce
    that you are developing and training.
        Ms. Fu. Thank you so much for that question. These are all
    things that we are thinking very deeply about at the Department
    of Energy. On metrics, the AI executive order refers to how
    much power is used to train the model, or FLOPS. So in the AI
    executive order it refers to 10 to the 26th as the amount of
    power that is used to train some of the most powerful models
    that are here today. Now, is power or the amount of money that
    you spend to train a model a good metric for capability?
        Senator Hoeven. It's just an input.
        Ms. Fu. It's imperfect. It's imperfect, and we recognize
    that. And I think what we are doing at the Department and
    across the interagency as well is thinking about what other
    ways of identifying model capability there are. I mean, one way
    to look at it is the data that is used to train the models.
    It's not always the size that counts, it's how useful that
    model is. And I will point to work that is underway across many
    of the national labs, but work that we are doing on red-teaming
    of open-source as well as proprietary models through our
    National Nuclear Security Administration. This is an area of
    intense work where we are pairing our data scientists with our
    experts in radiological and nuclear expertise to really
    understand how capable some of these models are relative to
    each other. And that is work that we hope to bring to the work
    of the AI Safety Institute to help inform that effort.
        More broadly, around the workforce issues, I think this is
    incredibly important. We have a managed research environment
    within the DOE national labs to look at risk across a
    continuum. Of course, for classified work, we have extreme
    restrictions on that. We have a science and technology risk
    matrix that looks across different areas of critical and
    emerging technology and we use that to help guide who works on
    what kinds of projects. We also screen foreign nationals who
    come into the labs.
        Now, to your point of, well, once they are in the labs and
    what if they leave, what if they take that knowledge, the
    training and go somewhere else, to industry or elsewhere? And I
    think that is part of the U.S. open ecosystem. We can't control
    where people go. We can take measures while they are in our
    system. And I think it calls for why the capabilities that we
    have at DOE attract talent from all over the world, because
    they are unique facilities. We have people at the labs who come
    to the United States because of that facility, because of that
    supercomputer, or because of that neutron source. And the
    investments that we are making at DOE and our national labs
    continue to keep that center of gravity for talent here in the
    United States.
        Senator Hoeven. Yes, I mean, I would argue that, you know,
    China or somebody else could actually want to develop people
    that come here and train under you, learn everything you have
    got, all your advanced technologies, and go back home and make
    sure that they have access to all that information and
    everything else and that capability.
        Ms. Fu. So I would say we are extremely clear-eyed about
    those threats, and that is why we have a managed research
    environment. That is why we work very closely with our Office
    of Intelligence and Counter Intelligence. We have our eyes wide
    open to those things and that is why we focus on where people
    have access to, even when they come to the lab, the kind of
    research that they are focused on, the kind of access that they
    have at the national lab. It's not a free-for-all once they
    come through. We have ongoing efforts underway. We have
    training. People understand what those risks are and there is
    an ecosystem around our labs to make sure that we are managing
    those risks properly.
        Senator Hoeven. Are you seeing people leave and go to other
    countries?
        Ms. Fu. I mean, we are seeing people leave and go to other
    companies. There is really a competition for talent in these
    areas of critical and emerging technology. If you speak to
    companies, they will say they can't hire enough people to do
    that. And I think if you talk to our national labs, they will
    say the same. I think the things that attract people to DOE are
    mission and the access to the kinds of resources that we have.
    But that leadership is not assured. That leadership is not
    assured, and people--other companies--are paying quite a lot
    more than what DOE national labs are paying, but people come to
    us because of the mission, the work that we do.
        Senator Hoeven. Right.
        Dr. Gleason. Just as a leader of a few organizations where
    I have tried to hire and retain talent across these emerging
    technologies, it is a big challenge. You know, recruiting--we
    need to increase our domestic workforce, the supply. In terms
    of retention, my personal experience is we have lost less to
    other countries, I can't even think of specific examples, but
    we lose a lot to industry. And I would rather lose to industry
    in the U.S. that is, you know, creating new AI technology that
    will advance the cause of the United States, but it is a
    challenge. And as Helena said, the ones that stay at the
    national lab for the long haul are the ones that are motivated
    by the mission. They love the lab mission and they love to work
    at a place where they can explore science and technology
    objectively without a profit motivation, which is a good
    motivation, but that's not why you come to the national lab.
        So I just wanted to echo what she said our challenge is,
    which is recruiting domestic talent with, you know, U.S.
    citizenship in the STEM fields. So one thing Oak Ridge is doing
    a lot, and other labs are doing this as well, is engaging in
    middle school, in high school. By the time they get to college,
    you are almost too late, right, because they have already
    decided their path. But having our scientists go mentor at
    local schools to try to encourage young men and women to enter
    STEM fields because we have such a huge shortage of that. So I
    think that is a big thing we need to focus on.
        Dr. Kaushik. I will just add to that, Senator. On metrics,
    I think no metric will give you a perfect picture. Every metric
    is targeting a different conversation, like, when you look at
    papers, you are asking about who is ahead in more basic
    research. When you are looking at commercialization, how many
    users are using iFLYTEK AI in the PRC actually outpaces how
    many people are using AI in the United States. But at the same
    time, nobody can dispute that the capabilities of our frontier
    AI model providers, whether it's Open AI, Anthropic, Meta and
    all those, are undisputedly in the lead. That said, their
    development of DeepSeek, which used to be, by the way, a
    financial firm in China, which the Chinese government said you
    have to work on AI now. And now they are churning out such
    amazing models--they actually publish all their results, and we
    can see that their results are actually very competitive to our
    models. You look at Huawei's new AI chip, which outperforms
    NVIDIA's A100 on several metrics. So there is an aggregate of
    statistics that we probably need to be looking at here, an
    aggregate of metrics.
        I think on the talent side, like, I think the labs are
    really great at recruiting mission-driven, focused people. At
    the same time, like, you can put, you know, you can have all
    the fancy knives in a restaurant, but if you don't have the
    Michelin-star chefs, you are not going to make a good meal. And
    I think that is the challenge the labs have to deal with.
        Senator Hoeven. Thank you, all three of you.
        The Chairman [presiding]. Thank you, Senator.
        Senator Daines.
        Senator Daines. Chairman Manchin, thank you, and thanks for
    holding this hearing on my bipartisan Department of Energy
    Quantum Leadership Act, which will reauthorize and strengthen
    DOE's programs under the National Quantum Initiative.
        In 2018, this Committee and Congress passed the National
    Quantum Initiative Act in order to focus research, development,
    and encourage commercialization of the next generation of high-
    powered computing. That bill has been very effective in
    spurring quantum research in the United States and in Montana.
    Since passage, Montana has seen a surge of economic development
    in jobs surrounding the quantum supply chain. The smartest
    people want to find the best places to also live and work, and
    Montana fits that bill. In fact, Montana now boasts over 50
    companies and 1,200 employees focused solely on quantum and
    photonics. Montana State University is home to the MonArk
    Quantum Foundry, which focuses on quantum materials research.
    Through the CHIPS and Science Act, Montana hosts the Headwaters
    Technology Hub, focused on smart photonics, which is a key
    component in the future of quantum technology. Simply put, and
    you may not be aware of this, in Montana right now, we are
    helping lead the world in quantum and photonics, which is why I
    am proud to say we have strong support from Montana and other
    national leaders to reauthorize the DOE Quantum Initiative,
    including the Montana Photonics and Quantum Alliance, Montana
    State University, the Montana Chamber of Commerce, the Energy
    Sciences Coalition, the Quantum Industry Coalition, the Quantum
    Economic Development Consortium, and in fact, many more.
        Chairman Manchin, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the
    record the many letters of support I have received for the DOE
    Quantum Leadership Act.
        The Chairman. You want an answer on that?
        Senator Daines. I need a yes.
        The Chairman. Yes.
        Senator Daines. Thank you.
        [Laughter.]
        [Letters of support for the DOE Quantum Leadership Act
    follow:]

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        Senator Daines. It's who you know in this business, isn't
    it, Joe?
        Thank you, Joe, I appreciate it--Senator Manchin--Chairman
    Manchin.
        Anyway, thank you.
        The Chairman. Still Joe.
        Senator Daines. And it's still Joe and I am still Steve,
    too.
        The Chairman. I know.
        Senator Daines. We must continue to focus our energy on
    developing the best technology and leading the world in quantum
    research, and this starts with passing my bipartisan bill. So I
    want to thank Chairman Manchin for entering those letters into
    the record and his partnership and support of this as well, and
    I yield back my time to the Chairman.
        The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
        First of all, before I adjourn, and thank you all for a
    great job and it was really wonderful, you know, just so much
    to do here. I want to make a clarification on--I know I put you
    all on the spot. I wasn't asking you to basically disparage on
    our sister NSF. What I was asking is, for the record, we wanted
    to avoid duplication. When we did the CHIPS and Science Act at
    the highest of DOE and the labs and intended to do the same
    with AI and other emerging technology, we were trying to avoid
    that duplication, and DOE, the labs, we were working on their
    behalf. I want to make sure that we have that balanced approach
    and we are not robbing Peter to pay Paul and trying to
    reproduce the same thing again, dual application. We just, I
    don't think any Democrats or Republicans want that to happen.
        So with your assurances that's not happening, and that you
    have the resources and you are working with the NSF to try and
    have a balanced approach with what they do and can do best for
    you to support what you are doing and vice versa is what we are
    trying to make sure happens. We just don't want you to think
    you have to be muffled on this. If you want to speak out, this
    is the place to do it.
        But with that being said, I believe that this hearing
    demonstrated consensus that we need to continue investing in
    and leading these emerging technologies in a way that leverages
    DOE's assets to avoid reinventing the wheel, as we have said,
    or duplicating between agencies. We worked to avoid duplication
    in the CHIPS and Science Act, and at the behest of DOE and
    labs, intend to do the same here in AI. We also agree on the
    need to secure the research from foreign espionage, and I
    believe that Senator Barrasso and I prepared a solid bipartisan
    compromise with the Intelligence Committee to do just that in
    the NDAA, which will complement our efforts on this Committee.
    It's a scalpel approach that protects our critical research
    while continuing our labs to leverage the best scientific minds
    in the world. We are concerned about not only the espionage
    that goes on, but also people that are working within, and we
    are training them to use it against us, but we understand the
    delicate thing that you have to work with in the freedom-loving
    country that we are and the democracy that we rule ourselves
    under.
        So members will have until close of business tomorrow to
    submit additional questions for the record.
        And the Committee stands adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 11:57 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

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