Gil on Oct. 1, 2024 in Ehningen, Germany. Photo: Thomas Niedermueller/Getty Images
President-elect Trump has nominated Darío Gil to be under secretary for science and innovation at the Energy Department.
Why it matters: Gil would be joining the agency as it grapples with meeting the energy demands of AI data centers and conducts research and development into the technology.
Gil is "a brilliant businessman and scientist," Trump said in a post on Thursday.
- Gil — chair of the National Science Board and senior vice president and director of IBM Research — will have to go through the Senate confirmation process for this post.
- He previously served on the Presidential Council of Advisors for Science and Technology during Trump's first term.
- He's also a member of the Vision for American Science and Technology (VAST) task force, a new group advocating for the U.S. to make major policy changes to maintain and boost the country's position as a scientific powerhouse.
Flashback: Gil is an open-source fan, saying this at an Axios event last year:
- "An open innovation ecosystem is absolutely existentially important to the right outcomes of AI and the AI industry."
- "A technology that is so important and profound has to have very diverse economic benefits, meaning it will be a terrible outcome if the AI revolution ends up in the hands of just three or four corporations rather than broadly diffused in terms of prosperity and institutional diversity."
