U.S. House Passes SPEED Act, Accelerating AI Infrastructure Development by 2026

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the SPEED Act, a bipartisan bill aimed at streamlining permitting and approval processes for AI infrastructure and large-scale data center power systems. The legislation, approved with a 221-196 vote, seeks to reduce federal permitting risks and enhance project delivery certainty for major cloud providers like Alphabet (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), and others.

The bill will now move to the Senate, which is currently working on broader permitting reforms. Leading tech firms, including Micron, OpenAI, and Microsoft, have publicly endorsed the SPEED Act. While the legislation does not drastically speed up data center construction overnight, it mitigates regulatory uncertainties in securing power and energy infrastructure—key constraints for AI expansion.

The SPEED Act modifies the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by narrowing its scope, exempting redundant reviews for projects with prior environmental assessments, and focusing impact analyses on direct effects. These changes are expected to accelerate transmission upgrades, grid connections, and power plant developments, facilitating long-term power contracts.

However, challenges remain, including local zoning disputes, grid interconnection delays, and utility cost-sharing politics. Projects by companies like Oracle have already faced local opposition and financing hurdles.

Separately, the White House announced that 24 top AI firms, including Microsoft, Alphabet, and Nvidia, have joined the "Genesis Project" to advance AI applications in energy and scientific research. The initiative aims to automate experiments, accelerate simulations, and develop predictive models.

Wall Street analysts suggest the AI investment cycle is still in its early to mid-stages, with potential infrastructure spending reaching $3–4 trillion by 2030. Firms like Bank of America, Vanguard, and Morgan Stanley highlight ongoing demand for AI compute hardware, though risks of a tech stock correction are rising.