28-02-2025
U.S. energy secretary, OpenAI co-founder say AI race is 'Manhattan Project 2' in Oak Ridge visit
Standing in a building that hosts the world's second fastest supercomputer at an original Manhattan Project site, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright declared that competition with China to develop artificial intelligence capabilities amounts to another worldwide technology race.
"We're at the start of Manhattan Project Two. It is critical, just like Manhattan Project One, that the United States wins this race," Wright said during his Feb. 28 visit to Oak Ridge National lab alongside Greg Brockman, co-founder and president of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. "We could lose this race in many ways if we don't get energy right, we don't unleash American energy, (if) we can't win the race for artificial intelligence."
AI models like OpenAI's o3-mini, specially trained for math and science problems, take high amounts of energy to develop. Large-scale data centers like Elon Musk's xAI data center in Memphis can use more than 100 megawatts of electricity, enough to power as many as 100,000 homes. OpenAI has had to become a construction company in addition to a software company, Brockman said.
Earlier in the day, Wright and Brockman participated from the lab in a "1,000 Scientist AI Jam Session," an event across nine U.S. national laboratories in partnership with private AI companies Anthropic and OpenAI.
The event invited scientists to use the latest AI models to test problems in their fields and provide feedback to improve the model responses. The ultimate goal is to integrate AI into the scientific research at labs like ORNL to speed up innovation for the public good, Brockman said.
"People can start to see how AI can benefit them, not just as an abstract idea, but as something very tangible that is going to be part of their daily lives. And I think that advancing science is one of the most important things that we can do to actually benefit everyone," Brockman said.
Wright, who was nominated by President Donald Trump in November and confirmed in a 59-38 vote by the Senate earlier this month, toured multiple Oak Ridge sites during his first visit. Joining Wright on Feb. 28 were U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty and U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, both of Tennessee.
Echoing his policy priority to "unleash" American energy and restore the nation's "energy dominance," Wright said the U.S. was in a technological race with China, much like the race with Nazi Germany to develop an atomic weapon during World War II.
Wright, formerly a gas and oil executive who pioneered large-scale hydraulic fracturing commonly known as fracking, became known for contrarian support for fossil fuels.
Before a crowd of scientists at ORNL, Wright said scientific consensus on climate change does not amount to a climate crisis and that the greater problem facing the U.S. is its competition with China to generate more electricity and power AI discovery.
"We want to deliver more affordable, reliable, secure energy to enable thriving in the United States, to allow Greg Brockman, his partners in OpenAI and other AI companies to win the AI race," Wright said.
His visit to Oak Ridge followed a Feb. 26 visit to Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratory, two Department of Energy nuclear weapons labs in New Mexico.
In Oak Ridge, the secretary visited the Y-12 National Security Complex, the former K-25 site and the Tennessee Valley Authority's Clinch River Nuclear Site, where the federal utility plans to build small modular reactors. At Y-12, Wright got to stamp the first weapon in a new generation of nuclear warheads, he said.
Wright's visit follows a turbulent first month of the Trump administration for federal workers, thousands of whom have received termination letters as Elon Musk works to cut federal spending through the new Department of Government Efficiency.
Some employees at the Y-12 Field Office, part of the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, received termination letters before the administration offered their jobs back, a source with knowledge of the matter told Knox News.
Speaking specifically of the federal workforce at ORNL, Wright said terminations would not be an issue at the Department of Energy's largest multiprogram science and tech lab.
"There's a lot of news that's made way too much out of way too little," Wright said. "Of course, you'll see some reduction in total head count. I don't think here at a cutting-edge national lab that that's an issue at all. I wouldn't worry about that."
The secretary's visit to Oak Ridge comes as the city attracts companies addressing a nuclear challenge farther upstream: rebuilding a U.S. supply of enriched uranium. Though elected officials in Oak Ridge have said there is no clear sign of federal spending cuts coming to projects in the city, President Trump told reporters in the White House on Feb. 14 that the U.S. is spending too much to modernize nuclear weapons and develop new nuclear weapons.
The program across National Nuclear Security Administration sites is costing the U.S. government hundreds of billions of dollars and could cost up to $1.7 trillion, with the goal of deterring nuclear advances by China and Russia.
Y-12 employees, who process the uranium and lithium components of nuclear weapons, are working on as many as seven different kinds of weapons at once.
Officials in the National Nuclear Security Administration have called the workload "unprecedented" when combined with major infrastructure updates at the plant, which employs around 8,600 people.
Wright emphasized Trump's business background when answering a question about whether he agrees with the president on the cost of nuclear weapons modernization.
"He's passionate about our nuclear defense, about our deterrence and about the United States leading in that. No change in that plan," Wright said. "Does he want things done better or smarter? Yes. Are people here in this valley in Oak Ridge looking at how to be smarter? That's what we talked about yesterday."
The Department of Energy increased its staff headcount by 20% under the Biden administration as nationwide energy prices increased, Wright said.
In his hearing before Congress and in his public statements, Wright has championed fossil fuels like natural gas as a pathway to economic development. His vision of unleashing American energy includes reducing the regulatory burden on fossil fuel companies and utilities like TVA.
In his visit to TVA's Clinch River Nuclear Site, the secretary said the utility would build the first small modular reactors in the U.S. and "launch a nuclear renaissance." TVA would "absolutely" partner with a private tech company to develop new nuclear technologies, TVA CEO Jeff Lyash told Knox News.
Daniel Dassow is a growth and development reporter focused on technology and energy. Email: Signal: @danieldassow.24.
Support strong local journalism by subscribing at
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: U.S. energy secretary, OpenAI co-founder talk AI race in Oak Ridge
