Intelligent Networks: Powering AI and Transforming Communications

explore the relationship between telecommunications, infrastructure, and artificial intelligence. That relationship moves in both directions. AI requires low latency and high bandwidth networks. But AI has real potential to make ne- to make networks more efficient and secure. This hearing is not intended to be a referendum on the merits of artificial intelligence. Around the world, however, our allies and adversaries are jockeying for AI leadership. To position the United States for ongoing economic and security leadership, the US needs AI-supportive and AI-enhanced networks. AI is increasingly a part of Americans' daily lives. For example, in twenty twenty four nearly three quarters of enterprises used AI for at least one business function in twenty twenty five more than half of Americans reporting, reported using generative AI. These trends have been accompanied by a surge in demand across networks, and AI adoption is only expected to grow. Most enterprises are still scaling their uses of AI and many individual AI uses are for basic search functions. As AI use and downstream applications of AI continue to grow, demand for reliable, high-speed, high-capacity networks will also grow. Today, we will explore how the rapid adoption of AI has impacted existing network infrastructure. This includes the new demand that AI has added to networks. We will explore how widespread AI use has forced networks to evolve, requiring more capacity and more complex designs, so that AI can run efficiently on those networks. We will consider how government providers and other industries are responding to that demand. Private companies have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in network deployment in recent years. Various federal broadband programs have also provided billions to support targeted network deployment and maintenance throughout the country. We will review obstacles to AI-supportive networks. Opaque regulations and lack of coordination should not get in the way of network deployment. of network development and the many downstream applications it enables. And finally, we will consider how AI can be used to improve our networks. Zooming out from the technical questions, we much must also ask a more fundamental question. Why must our networks be prepared for AI? First, America has a geostrategic imperative to make sure our networks are the best in the world. Now more than ever, we cannot fall behind in developing the most resilient and secure networks. Second, to reap the full economic benefits from AI and other rapidly emerging technologies, there, many of them are promising, and we need reliable connectivity for individuals and enterprises all over the country. This is not connectivity for the sake of just checking a box or hitting a milestone. Nebraska's hardest to reach communities include farms and ranches that are at the leading edge of connectivity-based ag solutions. Rural hospitals depend on resilient and secure communication networks to use state-of-the-art medical technologies. and reach patients in remote areas. Manufacturers rely on the Internet of Things, on robotics, and cloud-based systems to streamline etern- internal processes and improve quality control. As AI adoption increases, so will the demand for reliable and resilient communications infrastructure. Networks are the backbone, along with the enormous amounts of data associated with ai are transmitted. I look forward to discussing both how networks are adapting to respond to ai, and how ai is being used in networks to proactively plan for the future. Thank you. Uh, before we begin, I would ask unanimous consent that letters from a broad range of organizations describing the need for ai ready communication networks, be entered into the record. We have a number of them. Without objection? So ordered. Senator Lujan will be joining us shortly, but we will begin the hearing, and I would like to introduce our witnesses for today. Our first witness is Jonathan Spalter, President and Chief Executive Officer of US Telecom, the Broadband Association. A trade association representing the broadband providers and communication companies that build, operate and secure networks essential for America's AI economy. I'd like to give a warm welcome to our second witness, Commissioner Dan Watermire of the Nebraska Public Service Commission, which oversees the telecommunication carriers and related services, that support AI powered applications throughout the state of Nebraska. Our third witness is Bob Everson, Chief Architect of Provider Mobility at Cisco, where he leads the design and development of mobile network platforms and end-to-end architectures that enable AI driven communications networks. And our final witness is Asad Ramzin Ali, is that correct? Ramzim Ali. director of artificial intelligence and technology policy at the vanderbilt policy accelerator at vanderbilt university welcome to you all and we will now have the opening comments from our panel mister spalter i understand it's your birthday happy birthday

well thank you very much sir

and you're gonna be recognized for five minutes

yeah

i thank you and i couldn't imagine spending my birthday anywhere else but here thank you

i bet

uh but thank you chair fisher and senator klobuchar uh as well as to the other members of the subcommittee when i was thinking about uh how to prepare my remarks today i took some inspiration actually from a trip i took a couple of weeks back to the rafters of the capital dome to take a look at constantino brumiti's amazing fresco uh i i looked up and i saw uh much to my disbelief given my day job that there was the goddess venus actually laying the very first american uh submarine telegraph cable the scene was actually painted in eighteen sixty five the very moment that uh america was laying that very first uh transoceanic telegraph cable the civil war was ending and it was then that a very visionary congress believed that the future of our country ran through communications infrastructure Well, they were right then, and you on this committee are so right now to expand that dialogue in the current AI moment that we're in. Because with AI, we really are at the cusp of the next fundamental evolution of the internet. For thirty years, the internet we've come to know was built kind of like a freeway. Imagine with eight lanes going into town, but only two lanes coming back. And that asymmetric design was literally baked in as the assumption that on the assumption that we human beings and our devices would always receive more data than we send and as we all go home to binge stream love island while our kids are playing roblox that's very still much the case except that as we move forward into this ai phase of the internet that assumption is being completely shattered now the machines and sensors all around us require massive capacity to carry data both upstream and down, which fiber broadband uniquely is suited to do. Other technologies we know are working to expand their upstream capacity, but fiber doesn't have to, it never had to. It was built for this era with near limitless capacity and low latency in both directions. And this is why satellite and wireless and WiFi and uh other technologies that might become available in the connectivity landscape, will always hand off their traffic to fiber as quickly as they can to take advantage of its massive capacity and low latency. And it's for this reason that fiber broadband really is the circulatory system of our AI-enabled innovation economy. Thus, for us, the biggest barrier to getting AI-ready connectivity to every community isn't technology, it isn't investment, nor is it our will. We're ready. It's government specifically permitting, waiting months, even years, for permission to connect more communities to broadband. So our asks today are very straightforward. Pass the Close the Gap Act, the Rail Act, and the Accelerating Broadband Permits Act, so we can get our shovels and our fiber network in the ground and connect more of your communities to make sure that they too are gonna be part of our ai future. And let me emphasize this point without permitting reform to speed up fiber network deployment, not just ai, but our whole innovation economy is at risk of being put on ice. And nowhere is this more true than in rural America, as you s- as you rightly pointed out, chair. The communities that need us most are those where your actions today can make the biggest difference. In eighteen sixty-five, Congress looked at a single telegraph cable on the ocean floor, and they saw the American future. We were optimists then, and we must be optimists now, with a healthy dose of pragmatism built in as well. So the question before us, I believe as a society, is not do we stop or continue, it's the question that has been perpetually asked by innovation and one that we've successfully answered. How do we proceed responsibly in ways that will most fully benefit everyone? And that is the task before us. America's broadband providers to to a person. Look forward to working with you. And on behalf of all of you as Telecom member companies, I really thank you for the opportunity to be here today on my birthday. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you, Mister Spalster. we have been um joined by my dear friend and colleague ranking member senator luhan did you have comments that you would like to make at this time

uh madam chair thank you so much for putting this hearing together and to the witnesses for being here look forward to the testimony

thank you ranking member uh commissioner watermark you are now recognized for five minutes for your opening comments

good morning chair fisher and members of the committee my name is dan watermark i I'm gonna represent Nebraska's first district on the public service commission. I appreciate the invitation to speak to you today about the future of AI technology and opportunities and also the challenges it offers to Nebraska and on a national scale. The Nebraska Public Service Commission is dedicated to the advancement of broadband funding. Since the early two thousands, we have administered Nebraska Universal Service Fund, which now supports the development and maintenance of broadband cable networks at one hundred by one hundred speeds. We have also administered the Nebraska Bridge program and the federally funded capital funding uh projects fund, which over the course of the last few grant cycles, the broadband deployment projects have fueled competition to build over twenty thousand unserved and underserved across the state. Over the past five years, we have been fortunate to receive federal and state funds. I am excited to see how this enthusiasm will grow as we develop new A I tools. A I could become a tremendous support for our agriculture producers and already has. Precision agriculture tools are fantastic ways to conserve water, monitor livestock health, and target applications of fertilizers and pesticides, saving money and protecting the environment at the same time. These AI-powered tools are the future of agriculture, but we need reliable, universally stable, and available broadband in order to use them. As adoption of, and reliance on, AI technology increases, it will become even more important to ensure that all Americans have access to reliable, high-speed broadband networks. We need to ensure that rural Americans are not left behind on this. Technology moves forward. For the average citizen, AI technology is only useful if they have access to broadband connectivity. We must continue funding rural broad- build-out, or this technology simply won't be available for all who need it. I also want to mention the importance of fiber build-out, as my partner here had mentioned. while we recognize that many technologies may be able to deliver broadband to our citizens our commission has focused on fiber development for a few reasons specifically first scalability not every technology can easily meet the fcc s current one hundred by twenty technology threshold meanwhile fiber optic networks can greatly exceed these speed thresholds and are capable of meeting our needs into the foreseeable future i want to point out that data centers are not using wireless or satellite technology to move data they are using fiber. Second, supporting development. Fiber is the backbone for basically all the other technologies. We need fiber-based networks to support wireless, fixed wireless, and the cable networks. Third, reliability. Buried fiber is much less successful to weather hazards and natural disasters. Fires, tornadoes, and ice storms in recent years in Nebraska have shown the need for resiliency that fiber can provide. Developing broad band infrastructure will not be enough if these networks are not maintained. We have heard from industry providers that although the investment in fiber itself may last for forty years, the security required and fiber must be upgraded much more frequency frequently to accommodate changing technology. This to be expected as demands on the network for download and upload speeds are greatly and latency demands continue to grow. The task that ai is capable of today will be eclipsed by what it can do five years from now, so long as the network is upgraded to keep it up. For that reason, I want to emphasize that new build-out must be as future-proof as possible in the face of developing technology. Chair Fisher and members of this committee, I know that you recognize the importance of maintaining broad band networks. Hopefully it is clear that AI technology is dependent on those networks. I also think it is important to recognize that many of these networks are supported through federal and state universal service funds. and then raskins and i represent are grateful for your work and the work of your colleagues on the unit usf working group i look forward to hearing the group's recommendations for the future of usf i know there is a discussion on how the federal usf is funded i wanna just point out that ai creates and will create significant demand on the network a network that is supported today through surcharges on voice only thank you for your invitation to speak and i will gladly answer questions as you end if i can thank you

Thank you, Commissioner. Uh, next we have Mister Everson. You are recognized for five minutes.

Thank you. Chairman Fisher, Ranking Member Lujan, Chairman Cruz, Ranking Member Cantwell, and distinguished senators, thank you for the invitation to testify. Thank you, sir. My name is Bob Everson. Thank you, sir. For thirty years at Cisco, I have worked on the systems powering our nation's critical networks, Yes. Yes. and I've never seen a shift this consequential. Artificial intelligence is not just another application. It is driving a new connectivity fabric that will help define US economic strength and national security for decades. Today I will focus on how AI is transforming our networks, and how Cisco is using AI to improve them.

Hmm.

First, AI is changing not only the volume of network traffic, but the behavior. Cisco measured a four-fold increase in AI inference traffic over eight months. Networks have traditionally been optimized for content flowing downstream. AI is far more two-way and uplink-intensive. Prompts, context, sensor data, and agent activity all travel back towards AI models, and the resulting connections are active longer than conventional web transactions. AI agents will amplify these effects by operating at software speed. In our testing, an agent generated four hundred and fifty percent more traffic than a person performing the same task. And roughly seventy percent of that additional traffic was inference. Meeting these demands requires more balanced network designs, greater upstream capacity, resilient paths with end-to-end visibility, stronger security, and quality of service that can be tailored to AI traffic. As models become faster, the locations where computing occurs, from centralized clouds to the edge, will increasingly affect performance, cost and data governance. A network this fast and distributed Through agentic ops, Cisco uses AI to support self-healing operations, identifying faults, rerouting traffic, and recovering at machine speed. Our deep network models can distinguish legitimate AI traffic from anomalies, help predict and isolate threats, identify vulnerabilities, and guide operators in deploying patches. AI-native mobile networks can use spectrum and infrastructure more efficiently, adapt in real time and enable new services. For service providers, this can also turn the network into a platform for growth, opening new revenue streams beyond connectivity through services like inference optimization, edge AI, trusted AI services, and industry-specific solutions. One noteworthy example is integrated sensing and communication, which allows AI to combine radio signals with vision and other inputs, so wireless networks can connect devices, while also detecting objects in movement. So support uh applications such as safer robotics, more efficient buildings, enhance public safety and even healthcare. Together these capabilities define a new generation of intelligent secure and distributed networks that carry AI. Use AI to improve operations and enable AI native applications and services, strengthening economic competitiveness and national security. I commend NTIA for this week's call to action for six G leadership and which advances the international cooperation needed to ensure trusted partners shape the six G future. To sustain US leadership, I offer three policy priorities. First, accelerate the US AI native stack. Cisco is investing across multiple dimensions of AI native networking, bringing new capabilities to five G advanced today while building the foundation for six G. One example of this commitment is AIWin, a collaboration among Cisco, NVIDIA, MITRE, the O-RAN development company, Booz Allen, and T-Mobile, which brings AI, compute, networking and wireless together to create a secure American-led path from five G advanced to AI native six G. I would encourage Congress to lean in on American strengths in these areas. Second, modernize permitting and infrastructure. As computing becomes more distributed, permitting must enable rapid and responsible deployment. As this committee considers the future of universal service fund, It should account for the evolving costs of AI-ready networks, so rural and urban communities can share in the benefits. Third, maintain a balanced spectrum policy. The eight hundred megahertz of licensed spectrum recently made available by Congress, is essential to high capacity, high uplink connectivity. The FCC's authorization of the six gigahertz band for unlicensed use is equally important to meeting enterprise demand. A dependable pipeline of both is foundational to American leadership,

Thank you, Mr. Everson. Mr. Ramzan Ali, welcome, you are recognized for five minutes.

Chairman Fisher, Ranking Member Lujan, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for holding this important hearing. My name is Asad Ramzan Ali, and I am the of ai and technology policy at the vanderbilt policy accelerator ai and telecommunications are deeply intertwined fiber networks are how data moves in and out of ai data centers and for americans to benefit from ai every american must have access to that system we must reprioritize deploying high-speed reliable and symmetrical networks that reach every home in this country because i agree with much of what my co-panelists have said i won't repeat them uh instead i'll focus i'll start with one specific threat that ai poses to our telecommunication systems and that's cyber security cyber security well before ai our telecommunications networks were vulnerable a couple of years ago ok it's ok the chinese hacking group salt typhoon breached at least eight us telecommunications providers and it was actually able to intercept calls and text messages from high profile targets including presidential candidates one investigation called our systems a house full of open windows. But Salt Typhoon did it the old way, the low-tech pre-AI way. In the last year, AI has started strengthening cyber attackers' methods. We've now seen several AI-enabled cyber attacks, including at least one that breached another country's telecommunications systems. As AI-enabled cyber threats started expanding, the FCC went the other way. It rescinded the cyber security rules, that were put in place after the salt typhoon. That is the opposite of what we need to be doing. Now, we have even more reason for concern. Just last week, an open AI model, in testing, bypassed its sandbox constraints and hacked an AI ha- the AI platform Hugging Face. I recommend three actions on this front. First, require telecommunications providers to secure their networks, and similar uh uh requirements should be put in place for all critical infrastructure operators. Second, mandate pre-deployment testing of leading AI models. Testing should cover closed and open weight systems alike, but the mitigations to uh to to reduce the identified risks will differ. This should not become a ban on open weight models. Open weight models are critical for competition, for research, and for cyber security. Third, this committee should open an investigation into the open AI hugging face incident. I'll now use the remainder of my time to talk about how America's history with telecommunications, almost two centuries of history, can actually help inform the AI governance debates of today. Since the telegraph, communications providers have been required to treat similar customers alike. That's the principle of nondiscrimination. As an example, consider that the FCC barred AT_and_T from blocking third-party equipment on its network, and that opened the door to inno- to early innovations like the answering machine, the fax machine, and even the modem that that gave us the internet. AI models or AI model providers are now gatekeepers in their own right, and they have their own conflicts of interest. Here's one example. Last summer, as cloud code started becoming popular, Anthropic cut off model access to an independent AI start-up called Windsurf that also did AI coding. Anthropic was Windsurf's critical supplier and it became its competitor. That's the conflict of interest. Gatekeepers pick winners and losers instead of consumers competition and markets deciding outcomes. Two, shared infrastructure, shared jurisdiction. Telecommunications has always been governed governed by federal state and local governments together. Today's data center build-out has no coherent governance strategy at all. And it's provoking real backlash around the country. Dozens of of shelved projects, hundreds of protests, and hundreds of thousands of signatures just this year. With few policy levers at their disposal, hundreds of municipalities have turned to moratoriums, and one state has done the same. Instead of states subsidizing data center construction, Congress could establish a regime where local governments can charge a franchise fee so that they can compete for benefits, and they retain the right to say no. Finally, telecommunications is also instructive in the form of overspending on infrastructure that leads to bubbles. Uh, today, trillions of dollars of investment are chasing tens of billions of dollars of ai revenue um this is more than the country has spent as a relative uh share of g d p than on the Manhattan Project the Apollo program the electricity build-out or the interstate highway system the financing mechanisms involved are also troubling there's circular financing which happened during the dot com bubble there's private credit which Jamie Dimon has warned is full of cockroaches there's special purpose vehicles which Enron famously used and there's asset-backed securities, which we all learned about in two thousand eight. This committee investigated the financial engineering that enabled the dot-com bubble, but it did so after the bubble burst. In this instance, we can start those investigations now. There are myriad other things to discuss in the AI debate. I tried to focus on the infrastructural aspects of it. I thank you for holding this important hearing, and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you, sir. I would like to recognize Sander Luhan, for his questions at this time he's bouncing back and forth with uh different obligations. Maureen so Senator Lujan you are recognized.

Madam Chair, thank you so very much for that and to all of our panelists, thank you for being here and everyone that's tuning in. Um I'll start with a simple yes or no question, uh Mister Spaltner, can AI be transformative for the people in America if they do not have access to broad band networks?

No.

Commissioner?

No.

Mister Everson?

No.

Mister Ramzanali.

No.

The forty two and a half billion dollar bead funding appropriated by Congress has been called a, once in a lifetime uh investment in connectivity, in reliable, high-speed access across the country. Yet the administration has altered policies in a way that steer investments away from fiber build-out. And in doing so, have injected significant delays into the process. denying states and territories the full amount of money appropriated for bead goes against the goal of connecting a hundred percent of americans across america uh mister spalter can you explain how the bead restructuring notice impacted your member companies and what that means for our ability to support ai applications at scale

it has made us all focus our minds on the additional levers that we have as an industry to accelerate our ability to not only build but invest in expand expanding fiber connectivity to where it's needed most, and particularly to the unserved and underserved who stand to benefit significantly from AI connectivity. Which is why, though mindful of and dutiful to the rules that have been established and working closely with state broadband offices, we are imploring congress a- and other parts of the government to accelerate our ability to be a to build through things like permitting reform. and we support your initiative.

Mister Spalter, what good is permit reform if the money is taken away from you? What good is the money for your companies if permit reform is passed, if the administration takes the money from you?

Well, we're gonna

You can get everything out of the way, but if you don't have any money, what does it matter?

Yeah, we're, our core focus as an industry is to do whatever we can to build fiber network connectivity as far as possible. We do so mightily through private investment and through public partnerships as as uh much as we possibly can

let me ask you a question this way if your member companies have full access to the forty two billion dollars will they be able to build more fiber

for well obviously we would be able to

yes

i appreciate that commissioner

complicated question for me uh bead was uh originally put in the nebraska public service commission

your question

was it a change in administration it was a creation of the broad band office in nebraska i understand what happened inside of the the world uh as far as the applications different things after the first application many of our um telecoms in the state of nebraska had spent a great deal of money on engineering and then was turned back and had to reapply they decided not to apply so the long story short is in my opinion not from the commission's opinion but if there were dollars were spent there we could get it in faster hands as far as fiber

i appreciate the commissioner i i've learned from chair fish that i have a few things in common with you i was a member of the commission in new mexico also a farmer so uh i really like you uh commissioner so look forward to learning from you as well uh mr. everson

thank you

same question

so as an engineer i'm probably the least qualified here up here to to talk about this i will say from our standpoint um you know this is a once in a generation opportunity with the funding and uh getting everybody connected is really an essential aspect of things for us

appreciate that i mean mr. ramzanali is the united states considers how ai strengthens network performance and resilience we need to equally be rigorous around the security which i appreciate your attention to investigations the challenge to us here in the senate and in the congress um in that space i'm concerned that there are many decisions that are being made moving toward a voluntary evaluation framework for these high powered models leaving the security of our public infrastructure depend on the goodwill of individual developers in your view what role should government play in evaluating the capabilities of these high powered models especially when public infrastructure is at risk based on the choices of a small number of powerful and influential developers

You asked the question the perfect way. We should not be dependent on the goodwill of private companies. We should be the ones who are deciding. The public, through their representatives and the agencies that Congress creates, should be the ones deciding what the standards are, should be helping making sure that critical infrastructure providers are ready, when when sophisticated AI models are released. And we should be the ones deciding when all of that happens.

Appreciate that. Madam Chair, thank you for the flexibility in allowing me to ask questions first. I look forward to the rest of your responses. And look forward to working with each and every one of you. Thank you again, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Senator Lujan. Nebraska is home to dozens of growing industries that are increasingly reliant on AI in their day-to-day operations. That's from precision agriculture, which, Commissioner, you talked about, manufacturing, logistics, freight, health care, financial services, public safety. And Nebraska businesses and their customers are integrating more advanced technologies like ai they have to be resilient you know if we're looking at the applications we wanna make sure they're resilient um they have to be able to have that connectivity which you talked about can you tell me how um nebraska's communications infrastructure commissioner is ready for the complexity and volume of traffic that ai has introduced into the equation

yeah i believe they are ready they're working to improve it and to be ready for the expansion is gonna happen but to talk about the resilient resiliency specifically in nebraska we've had an event last year with the wildfires and i spoke with several telecoms they basically unaffected because they had vaults they had pieces of puzzle that were covered when we had the floods and the ice storms in two thousand twenty we were covered there we lost very little infrastructure as far as that goes so i have a a lot of confidence that the telecoms, specifically in Nebraska and across the country, are actually ready for the ai and they're just anxious to do it. But we gotta be worried about this last mile and we gotta be worried about the last customer.

Do you think um these customers are gonna have that connectivity? That they're gonna need to compete uh in in sectors like manufacturing and agriculture we we've heard it takes that fiber. Uh what what are we looking at here when when the you have the basics involved with ai and how that's gonna be available

you know infrastructure isn't the same on every city as it compares to the rural areas in your home i know in in the counties where you live we have the infrastructure there for manufacturing which will be much easier we have the infrastructure there for the first step in agriculture someone's office their home but when we gonna talk about going over the hill with the autonomous vehicle or we gonna talk about going over the hill to look at something specific on my farm i specifically use satellite and drone imagery to look at weeds to look at different things. It tells me quicker than I could ever be there. We have that technology, but it's the next step is what I worry about. And I think the telecoms are ready, but I just don't think we're gonna have the connectivity of the last mile, the last animal, the last acre, like like we'd like to have.

Can you tell us how important um the Universal Service Fund and Nebraska's Universal Service Fund are to ensuring that rural communities have that connectivity so that they can participate in the ai economy today and into the future

that's critical i mean the nebraska universal service fund has what we consider partnered with the federal side we watch with the dollars that they receive federally and the programs they receive we try to match and fill those gaps uh nebraska has actually reached and and my philosophy is on everything i have done in in the legislature or in the commission is all about infrastructure i would like to spend a dollar but not just have it help or serve one individual but see how it helps the overall

yeah we all know infrastructure is an investment in uh the future of our communities and our country as well mister spalter um many of your members utilize universal service fund as well so i put that question to you how important is

thank you

the universal service fund to be able to have that connectivity to rural communities that need to, not just want to, but that need to participate in a ai-centric economy.

And I would add they must participate in an ai-centric economy, and one of the one of the accelerators of that is a reformed thoughtful USF program that can keep pace with the changes that we're seeing in our network. uh, and the needs of the communities that it's designed to serve, which is why we are very grateful for your service as chair of the USF working group along with Senator Lujan and we're gonna do everything we can to support your work to ensure that every community can get the fiber infrastructure they need maintain it optimize it for the long haul, so that we can actually deliver AI's benefits to every community in the country.

Thank you. Uh, Mister Everson, when somebody picks up their phone they wanna make a call or send a text um the person is usually not thinking about the nature of the network over which that data is uh being transmitted unless the call drops or unless uh the text doesn't go through or the email gets stuck along the way this is largely uh true for end users of ai as well residential businesses they care about the quality of the data and the outcome that they have. However, they likely don't care about the network and that allowed them to be able to use that AI model so Mister Everson can you describe the need for a complimentary network technologies that are going to support an AI economy and especially, the end users for that AI?

Absolutely. Thank you, Senator. It's a great question. Uh, the way I like to think about it is is exactly as you said it. the user doesn't wanna have to care what network they're connected, they want access to that service regardless of where they are. So whether they're on their WiFi network at home, or they're on WiFi at their company, uh, whether they're out on the macro network and they're using the cellular network, or they're using satellite services as were mentioned earlier, or they're at home on their broadband connection, it should all be the same, and that fabric is really essential to our success.

Thank you. Senator Klobuchar, you are recognized for your questions.

Well, thank you very much. Uh, Senator Fischer, and thank you to all of you for being here today. Um, I believe that our laws need to keep up with the technology and be as sophisticated as the technology and have a coordinated approach. I've been frustrated that we haven't been able to move forward on different fronts. Senator Thune and I hope to have our bill completed uh over the August uh time period so we can have a mark-up immediately when we come back. um to set some standards and i know there's other ideas out there as well um because we just can't stand down and not have coordinated rules in place when it comes to ai and when it comes to content with ai i think this technology could bring us miraculous cures i know mayo is using it now um in some really good ways uh in minnesota but as david brooks uh once wrote he doesn't know if how to write about ai because he doesn't know if it will bring us to heaven or hell so if we do nothing it's gonna bring us to hell and i think we could be in much better shape if we put some rules in place um so we're gonna start with some of that with this committee but i just don't think we can keep waiting until the next election and the next election and the next election so um i'm gonna start out just asking you uh mister ramzan neely um about what steps need to be taken within the federal government uh to strengthen our oversight of ai that presents high risk um including the risk of cyber attacks we've had a number of them as other states have had we just had some water structures um that was water infrastructure that were attacked i don't know if it's ai related by the way cyber attack

i i appreciate your question and your long leadership on so many of the issues that ai governance includes to answer the narrow part of it which is how do we think about cyber and those kinds of risks uh to me there's two parts of it you have to harden the infrastructure that critical infrastructure operators have and you have to require pre deployment testing so that the government and critical infrastructure providers know the scope of the threat and can mitigate risks those two parts both have to happen

ok and mister everson in order to uh protect uh the fast pace of cyber attacks uh we likely need to use ai to respond just as fast so what steps should companies take to strengthen their own cyber security practices, including by using ai

absolutely thank you senator uh you know it's there's no surprise that ai has accelerated the discovery of vulnerabilities um and uh and the access to those um you know what we're seeing is uh is also an ability using these models if we look at things like uh project glasswing uh and daybreak um we were actually able to identify with early Um, our team gave me a a fascinating stack. Um, they were able to go through one point eight billion lines of code in five weeks' time, which is unprecedented. So, there is a balance that it gives the good guys really good tools to use. Um, from our standpoint there's some really basic recommendations to get to the point of your question. Uh, number one is patching,

Mm-hmm.

patch, patch, you know, install the patches. Uh, number two is identify the products that aren't patchable. There's a lot of tech debt out there that needs to be upgraded. um, multifactor authentication to limit people having access to the network, and then a zero trust architecture, which, you know, doesn't just rely on a perimeter, but everything that happens in there, uh, requires authentication.

OK. Um, Mister Spalter, can you talk about the changes and updates our telecom infrastructure needs to support what's coming at us with AI or what is already here?

I I think that the, uh, the fundamental physics of what the technologies that uh comprise fiber technology are already in place, which is the symmetrical capabilities at scale and at speed and at low latency to be able to do the throughput that ai is gonna be required not only to support the infrastructure, but more importantly the human beings that are gonna be needing it. Which is why we need to deploy more fiber as more broadly as possible, and that's why I'll go back, hopefully not as a broken record, to the essential need for permitting reform.

Mm-hmm.

I'd also say that, uh

And just could you explain, you see this at the state level, federal level, how do you see this going,

Well

if you could wave a magic wand?

Uh, if I could wave a magic wand, we would move aggressively right now to pass the bills before Congress, uh, that you are, uh, evaluating not only for federal land where we can at least have shot clocks and uh deem granted for previously analyzed projects, but also extend at the state and local level uh more efforts some of which are being analyzed right now by the fcc to apply to wired broadband therefore fiber broadband the same uh types of approaches on state and local permitting that we have been successfully able to do in twenty eighteen on wireless networks which is one of the reasons that we were able to scale five g as quickly and take global leadership on it as quickly as possible

ok just one last question since it's for the witness from nebraska madam chair if you don't mind um um uh mister watermeyer i know we have a mutual friend of uh in minnesota and um you know we could you just expand on what mister spalter was talking about it at the local level of what you think uh we should be doing to uh protect as you know there's some very small towns and small counties and small communications networks

you're exactly right senator and thank you for the question and we have more than just one friend in common i'm pretty sure in minnesota so um mister spalter had eh eh reached a little bit of a point there he talked about how the state's role is and i don't wanna get into the weeds and suggesting anything at the federal level but i do have a lot of confidence in the stakeholders that are here today and many of them that aren't that really know what they need to do on the weeds but the states are gonna have a role in this i believe and they should have i mean even our commission deals with all the utilities and we're talking about this very thing all the time with them do they have have they uh generate enough revenue to cover their costs in cyber and all the different things and then if a black sky event would happen are they ready and are we talking so i think there's a role in the states to do this i don't i hope we're not preempted completely at the federal level so that'd be my answer senator

thank you

thank you senator klobuchar senator klobuchar is um always been a strong leader and advocate for many of these issues and always for rural areas in the states so thank you senator capito you are recognized

thank you senator fisher and thank all of you all for being here um Mister Spalter, you're you're singing my song here on permitting. Uh, I noticed in your in your uh statement you said the primary constraint on America's AI infrastructure is not technological, it's governmental. Per- permitting is the sig single largest roadblock. Most people think of permitting reform in terms of energy development or possibly transportation systems. But the communication systems and the AI systems are as as important and maybe in some cases as you're making the case today. um uh more important uh to be able to move quickly and swiftly. Um you probably know I am the chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee. We have been in active negotiations with the uh Energy and Natural Resources Committee at the committee chair and ranking member level, for really months now to try to get to some of the permitting issues that you uh that you talked about. You mentioned Shaw-Clock's public lands. Um are there other things that uh you think permitting reform would help in the industry to be able to build out as quickly the infrastructure that's needed.

Uh, yes, Senator, I I think that there's uh several initiatives that we can actually move on very very quickly. With respect to federal lands, if we can simply allow previously analyzed projects to be deemed granted so that we can move swiftly to trans- to transit uh lands that are uh managed by the federal government,