Telecom Regulation Will Boost U.S. AI Success: Incompas CEO Pickering
If the U.S. wants to win on AI, it must focus on telecom regulatory issues like permitting, Incompas CEO Chip Pickering told the House Communications Subcommittee on Wednesday. Pickering spoke during a hearing on how U.S. communications networks can support AI.
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“We need bipartisan permitting reform to clear the obstacles that delay and cost our companies who are building fiber, wireless, satellite” infrastructure and the data centers and power facilities needed for the changing economy, Pickering told lawmakers. He also complained about the delays and “exorbitant” costs that providers face when they cross railroad lines.
BEAD projects need to get built and shouldn’t be taxed, Pickering said, adding that Congress must also restore FCC auction authority to get new spectrum bands onto the market.
“We are now in a race against China to win the future of an AI economy,” Pickering said. “We need a national framework of AI policy on each of the major questions to win that race.” Issues should be addressed at the federal level, not by the states, he said.
Accordingly, Incompas supports a moratorium on enforcing states' AI regulations, as Congress is considering. A moratorium would mean “that we don’t have a thousand state actions that could slow [or] delay the investments we need on both sides of the data centers."
Industry has spent more than three decades “inventing the technology that powers modern AI,” said Ronnie Vasishta, Nvidia's senior vice president of telecom. Providers must leverage AI in their networks. “The convergence between AI and telecoms presents an unprecedented opportunity for renewed U.S. leadership globally,” he said. “But we must act quickly.”
The wireless industry is working on 6G standards with a proposed completion date of 2030, Vasishta said. While that may sound like a long window, “the train has left the station, and we’re losing time.” Early deployment of 6G might start as early as 2028, he said. “Already clear is that whoever seizes the advantage in the development and the deployment of AI-native 6G will win the 6G race.”