Alaska AI

Alaska’s Department of Health is preparing Year 2 of the Rural Health Transformation Program “even as the state has yet to finish distributing the first round,” ADN reported. The lag shows who decides where $272 million goes.

It’s a pass-through. Congress funds a $50 billion program, CMS allots it to states against plans that must “prioritize data and technology driven solutions,” and Alaska routes its $272,174,856 Year 1 award through one discretionary office.
Here's the layered breakdown.

- Statute is $10 billion a year with a tech-first plan mandate, Congress
- Federal allotment approves plans and can claw back payments, CMS Administrator
- State award authority makes every funding call, DOH Commissioner Heidi Hedberg
- Subaward intake runs the portal and manages subawards, Alaska Community Foundation
- Year 2 targeting shifts open calls toward state-directed calls, DOH Commissioner

Layer three is the chokepoint. DOH states that “the DOH Commissioner retains final decision-making authority on all funding decisions.” The binary is fund or don’t fund plus the pen on Year 2 criteria. The RHTP Advisory Council only advises. The one live upstream check is the CMS Administrator’s clawback.

Congress wrote a technology tilt into the statute. Rep. Genevieve Mina has said the federal design is “almost directing us to AI,” according to GovTech. In Alaska that tilt passes through one office before it reaches anyone.

Year 1 reportedly went out as stabilization in weekly batches. Year 2 narrows further into “state-directed targeted innovation funding opportunities” in three focus areas ADN reports as pay-for-value reimbursement, care coordination, and emergency medical services. None is labeled technology.

That’s a sensible design for Alaska’s provider map and it gives CMS one accountable office. But it means the money is real for Alaska AI and health-IT vendors without being addressed to them. It arrives through providers. Foundation Health Partners’ $16 million award for data and technology to better focus on prevention per Alaska’s News Source. The provider holds the award and the tech rides inside a care project.

The window is short. ADN reports Year 2 criteria comments close Oct. 9 and remaining Year 1 funds release at the end of October. DOH says new applications could open “as early as fall 2026,” and Year 1 money must be fully spent by Sept. 30, 2027. Vendors who comment now and pair with a hospital, tribal health organization, or EMS agency are positioned. Standalone vendor applications aren’t.

Should Alaska health-tech firms ask the Commissioner to name technology as an explicit Year 2 criterion by Oct. 9 or build it inside provider projects and let the categories stand?

#AlaskaAI #RuralHealth #HealthcareAI #AIPolicy

5 days ago | [YT] | 0

Alaska AI

The University of Alaska’s Chief Information Technology Officer Ben Shier has put a draft AI policy before the Board of Regents. If approved in November UAA and every other UA campus must adopt an AI plan.

Shier leads the UA System Office of Information Technology and is a former UAA Chief Information Officer. If adopted the policy would require UAA, the campus where he was once CIO, to write its own AI plan.

According to KTOO Shier presented the draft at the September regents meeting at UAS in Juneau first reported Sept. 16. Its guiding principles are to avoid replacing human talent, keep data secure, and use AI to widen access to education services. He framed the core governance problem as two questions. “How do you ensure data privacy and protection? How do you provide monitoring?”

The regents now have a real choice to make. AI adoption can stay with campuses, departments and faculty under existing data rules or a top-down framework can require UAA, UAF and UAS to each produce a plan for students, faculty and staff.

The direction is right. A 2025 Inside Higher Ed survey cited by KTOO found about 85% of college students use generative AI in coursework, so use is already ahead of policy.

UA isn’t starting from zero either. OIT’s Generative AI Security Standard effective January 2025 already bars Internal and Restricted data, such as FERPA and HIPAA data, from unapproved generative AI tools. The draft moves UA from a data-handling rule to an institutional expectation. Setting guardrails before use spreads further is the correct order of operations.

The honest gap is process and Shier named it himself. He said the draft came together over the summer without enough faculty and student feedback and that UA can’t currently control and track every use of AI. Regent Christine Ressler raised concerns about data security capabilities according to KTOO. That’s a reason for care and not alarm. The risk is a November vote that adopts principles before UA can enforce them. For UAA the useful test is whether the campus plan requirement comes with the resources to carry it out.

Next come fall student listening sessions and online surveys which had no dates as of Sept. 16. After that, leadership plans to bring a finalized draft for approval at the November 2026 regents meeting. The thing to watch is whether faculty and student input visibly changes the final text and whether the monitoring question Shier posed gets a concrete answer before the vote.

Should the regents approve the framework in November as drafted, or hold it until faculty input and a monitoring plan are in hand?

#AlaskaAI #AIPolicy #WorkforceDevelopment

1 week ago | [YT] | 1

Alaska AI

The Air Force opened a wetlands comment period on the proposed Eielson micro-reactor site with comments due Sept. 30 according to KUAC. The wetlands gate isn’t where this project actually gets decided.

A private developer would build, own and operate a 5-megawatt micro-reactor inside the fence at Eielson and sell the base its electricity and heat for up to 30 years.

The chain has four layers.

1. Wetlands siting gate under the Air Force’s environmental impact analysis process. The Environmental Assessment and an unsigned Finding of No Significant Impact go public for at least 30 days, and approval rests with the Air Force Environmental Protection Committee, not a named officer.
2. The substantive test, Executive Order 11990 Section 2(a). No new construction in wetlands unless the Secretary of the Air Force finds there is no practicable alternative and that the action includes all practicable measures to minimize harm.
3. Purchase authority, 10 U.S.C. 2922a. It lets a service secretary contract up to 30 years for an energy production facility and the energy it produces, with energy security and resilience named as critical factors.
4. Counterparty layer. The reactor would be commercially owned and operated, and the tentatively selected developer, Oklo Inc., says in its FY2025 10-K that the selection “has not been finalized.”

The binding decision sits in subsection (b) which reads “A contract may be made under subsection (a) only after the approval of the proposed contract by the Secretary of Defense.” No committee, no board, no delegation in the text. One officer owns a binary yes or no and without it there's no contract.

The wetlands gate is real and it’s the only channel an outside party gets right now. It sets the Sept. 30 clock and KUAC reports officials anticipate an Environmental Assessment rather than a full impact statement. But the Air Force’s own regulation routes that finding to a committee at a level the MAJCOM picks. Thats a process built to survive.

The hard gate sits upstream of the concrete. A thirty-year obligation to buy power from a privately owned reactor can’t be made until one person at the top of the Department signs. Locally this reads as an environmental review. Structurally it’s an acquisition and the acquisition hasn’t happened which is why the developer’s SEC filing still says “tentatively.”

If you’re modeling Interior Alaska firm power, a Fairbanks-area load, or a Railbelt interconnection that assumes Eielson gets 5 MW behind the fence by 2030, don’t carry it as contracted capacity. Carry it as an option contingent on an approval with no public docket and no deadline. The comment window closes Sept. 30.

Should a single approval under 2922a(b) with no docket and no deadline decide whether Interior Alaska gets firm behind-the-fence generation or should a 30-year power purchase draw a public record before it reaches that desk?

#AlaskaAI #EnergyPolicy #GridPolicy #FederalContracting

1 week ago | [YT] | 0

Alaska AI

AIDEA’s Executive Director Randy Ruaro defended a no-cost non-competitive transfer of nearly 20,000 state acres near Houston that lists “scalable data centers” as a use. Five senators question its legality.

AIDEA is the state’s development-finance authority based in Anchorage and Ruaro runs it.

DNR would convey the land, first reported by KTUU in July and approximately 30 square miles per Alaska Beacon to AIDEA for a “multi-use industrial and energy development district” whose outlined uses include scalable data centers near existing and planned utility corridors. Senators Giessel, Wielechowski, Dunbar, and Claman, all of Anchorage plus Kawasaki of Fairbanks challenged the legality of a noncompetitive no-cost transfer in letters dated Aug 19th and Sept 9th.

Ruaro answered DNR in writing per Alaska Beacon. “Let me be clear. There is no data center project planned, nor has one ever been discussed with a project proponent.” He added that “Local community needs will be prioritized” and that AIDEA ownership “creates flexibility” for the Mat-Su Borough. He could have paused for project-level review. He pressed forward. The comment period closed Sept 14th with over 2,100 comments filed.

The bet is defensible. Alaska has been losing compute projects to faster-permitting states and a public authority holding corridor-adjacent land can move when a tenant appears and still set terms. But the mechanism is the whole argument. No cost, no competition, no named tenant, no project for DNR to evaluate. Ruaro’s “no data center project planned” line cuts both ways. It defuses the charge of a giveaway to a chosen buyer. It also concedes the senators’ core point that DNR is being asked to hand over nearly 20,000 acres for uses nobody can yet assess.

The big issue is power. Giessel put it on the record. “We are struggling right now to make sure we have energy. This seems terribly inappropriate.” Whoever controls this land shapes where and whether large, always-on AI loads hit the shared Railbelt grid Anchorage ratepayers depend on as Southcentral gas supply tightens. The verdict here is sharp aim, mediocre sequencing. Ruaro is right that Alaska needs shovel-ready industrial land to compete. He hasn’t shown why the transfer must close before anyone can price the grid consequence.

Watch DNR’s final decision, weeks away given the comment volume. A positive finding lets AIDEA acquire and start marketing the district. Then watch whether AIDEA names a data-center tenant, whether it files for Railbelt interconnection, and whether the five senators escalate from letters to legislation or litigation when the Legislature convenes in January.

Should DNR convey the land now and let AIDEA sort grid capacity tenant by tenant or should the transfer wait until there’s a project Southcentral utilities can actually model?

#AlaskaAI #DataCenters #GridPolicy #EnergyPolicy

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 1

Alaska AI

Eagle River’s Anchorage Assembly member Jared Goecker voted Sept. 1st in the 8-4 majority that funded APD’s Real-Time Crime Center expansion. Just under $600,000 moved before the rules for the system did.

The contract is with Thundercat, not to exceed $598,998.10 per Alaska’s News Source paid from federal asset forfeitures according to the memorandum ADN reported. It buys audio-visual equipment and desks to move a center that already exists out of what Chief Sean Case described as a small concrete box at the Elmore Road building.

The hub can reach roughly 750 cameras, including more than 250 traffic cameras, body cameras, drones and volunteered private security feeds, per Alaska Public Media.

Goecker took issue with the Assembly’s August postponement, citing a state Department of Public Safety report showing Anchorage property crime up 20% last year. On the record he said “Delaying resources for law enforcement while crime is surging is completely backwards and unacceptable.” He chose fund now, with seven colleagues, over the four (McCormick, Volland, Scout, Martinez) who wanted the surveillance-and-privacy ordinance adopted first.

That’s a legitimate governing position rather than a talking point. Kameron Perez-Verdia, also in support, put the sunk-cost point plainly. Holding back audio-visual equipment for a center that’s already functioning and already processing information didn’t make sense to him. The forfeiture funding lowers the fiscal stakes of yes, and a month’s delay against that crime report is a real cost the privacy side has to answer for.

The evidence-backed risk is sequencing, and Goecker owns it. The majority authorized a platform that can reach 750 cameras two weeks before the Assembly returns to the ordinance that would require its own approval for any AI deployment on that platform, two-week deletion of footage not tied to active investigations, and warrants before sharing data with federal agencies. Case told the Assembly in August that “Code is not going to keep up with technology.” Capability is going in ahead of its rules, on a system whose own chief expects the code to lag.

His next vote is on that ordinance, sponsored by McCormick, Volland and Scout, which Volland says the sponsors plan to bring back before the Assembly on Sept. 15 after fine tuning with the mayor’s administration. Watch whether the same eight-member majority that funded the hardware now constrains the AI that will run on it, waters the provisions down, or defers the guardrails again. Goecker’s own reasoning cuts both ways. If delay is unacceptable for law-enforcement resources, the same clock is running on the rulebook.

Was funding the Thundercat buildout two weeks ahead of the ordinance the right sequence, or should the eight have tied the money to the rules?

#AlaskaAI #AIPolicy #ProcurementReform

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 0

Alaska AI

The CEO of the Alaska Energy Authority Curtis Thayer told the Anchorage Daily News that a federal filing claiming a tie-in to AEA’s $400 million Cook Inlet PowerLink was “dead wrong.” He says AEA was never contacted.

Thayer is CEO and Executive Director of AEA, the Anchorage-headquartered agency that finances and operates Railbelt grid infrastructure including the PowerLink submarine transmission project serving the Anchorage-area load center.

The trigger was a preliminary permit application at FERC. DeepGreen Cook Inlet SPV LLC proposed a 100-megawatt underwater AI data center off Nikiski, roughly 350 tidal turbines and 66 subsea server “hives,” described in the filing as designed to tie into AEA’s Cook Inlet PowerLink. Per ADN on August 19th Thayer said AEA had never been contacted by the company. “It’s extremely disappointing that they would send something to FERC without contacting us,” he said.

The binary he owned was narrow. Let a claimed partnership with a $400 million public asset sit unchallenged in the federal record or say on the record that it doesn’t exist.

He chose refutation and it was the right call. A federal permitting record is a durable document and an unverified interconnection claim inside it does real work for a developer. It signals to reviewers and to capital that a $400 million state-backed line is already in the plan.

Correcting that early costs AEA almost nothing and it keeps a public asset from supplying free credibility to a developer AEA says it had never spoken with. It also tells the next speculative filer that Railbelt infrastructure isn’t a plug-and-play backdrop for an AI data center pitch.

The tension underneath is unresolved. Alaska’s utilities are courting exactly this class of load and Chugach Electric has said it needs large new loads to spread fixed costs across a shrinking customer base. A 100-megawatt tidal-powered data center is the kind of load that math wants. Thayer’s correction was justified but it landed as a public no rather than an opening to talk. Whether AEA treats this as a one-off record correction or as its standing posture toward data center developers will say a lot about how Alaska competes for this investment.

The window is open now. FERC’s comment and intervention period on Project No. 15423-000 opened September 4th. Watch whether AEA files formal comments or moves to intervene, whether DeepGreen amends or withdraws the PowerLink interconnection claim, and how Kenai Peninsula Borough stakeholders weigh in. Watch too whether this becomes the template for Railbelt responses to North Slope and Mat-Su proposals.

Was public refutation the whole answer here or does AEA now owe developers a published front door for interconnection questions before the next filing lands?

#AlaskaAI #EnergyPolicy #GridPolicy #DataCenters

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 1

Alaska AI

The CEO of the Alaska Energy Authority Curtis Thayer told the Anchorage Daily News that a federal filing claiming a tie-in to AEA’s $400 million Cook Inlet PowerLink was “dead wrong.” He says AEA was never contacted.

Thayer is CEO and Executive Director of AEA, the Anchorage-headquartered agency that finances and operates Railbelt grid infrastructure including the PowerLink submarine transmission project serving the Anchorage-area load center.

The trigger was a preliminary permit application at FERC. DeepGreen Cook Inlet SPV LLC proposed a 100-megawatt underwater AI data center off Nikiski, roughly 350 tidal turbines and 66 subsea server “hives,” described in the filing as designed to tie into AEA’s Cook Inlet PowerLink. Per ADN on August 19th Thayer said AEA had never been contacted by the company. “It’s extremely disappointing that they would send something to FERC without contacting us,” he said.

The binary he owned was narrow. Let a claimed partnership with a $400 million public asset sit unchallenged in the federal record or say on the record that it doesn’t exist.

He chose refutation and it was the right call. A federal permitting record is a durable document and an unverified interconnection claim inside it does real work for a developer. It signals to reviewers and to capital that a $400 million state-backed line is already in the plan.

Correcting that early costs AEA almost nothing and it keeps a public asset from supplying free credibility to a developer AEA says it had never spoken with. It also tells the next speculative filer that Railbelt infrastructure isn’t a plug-and-play backdrop for an AI data center pitch.

The tension underneath is unresolved. Alaska’s utilities are courting exactly this class of load and Chugach Electric has said it needs large new loads to spread fixed costs across a shrinking customer base. A 100-megawatt tidal-powered data center is the kind of load that math wants. Thayer’s correction was justified but it landed as a public no rather than an opening to talk. Whether AEA treats this as a one-off record correction or as its standing posture toward data center developers will say a lot about how Alaska competes for this investment.

The window is open now. FERC’s comment and intervention period on Project No. 15423-000 opened September 4th. Watch whether AEA files formal comments or moves to intervene, whether DeepGreen amends or withdraws the PowerLink interconnection claim, and how Kenai Peninsula Borough stakeholders weigh in. Watch too whether this becomes the template for Railbelt responses to North Slope and Mat-Su proposals.

Was public refutation the whole answer here or does AEA now owe developers a published front door for interconnection questions before the next filing lands?

#AlaskaAI #EnergyPolicy #GridPolicy #DataCenters

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 1

Alaska AI

BLM opened the federal right-of-way renewal docket for the Trans Alaska Pipeline on Aug. 26th and scoping closes Sept. 10. Federal law already settled the renewal. The only live decision is the terms.

Under 30 U.S.C. 185 the government must renew the TAPS corridor grant so long as the pipeline keeps operating. One BLM office is writing thirty years of corridor conditions on a fifteen-day window.

- The renewal floor 30 U.S.C. 185(n) caps the grant at thirty years and removes any discretion to refuse while the line operates, held by the Secretary of the Interior.
- The conditioning power, 185(f), lets that same authority prescribe terms over extent, duration, location, construction, operation, maintenance, use and termination, with no limiting standard.
- The renewal docket NEPA Number DOI-BLM-AK-9410-2026-0009-EA runs scoping and drafts the stipulations package controlled by BLM Alaska State Director Kevin Pendergast.
- The grantee stack Alyeska Pipeline Service Company applying for owners Harvest Alaska, ConocoPhillips Transportation Alaska and ExxonMobil Pipeline Company.
- The parallel state gate, an amendment to lease ADL 63574 under AS 38.35.070, adds about 26.1 acres of stockpile ground at mileposts 77.5 through 82.4, decided by State Pipeline Coordinator Anthony Strupulis.

Control sits in the NEPA instrument and Pendergast owns the binary. Build the thirty-year record on the posted path, an environmental assessment carried in the -EA suffix of BLM’s NEPA number reported by Alaska Public Media as a lighter review than an EIS, or elevate it to one. No committee vote, no rate case, no legislative concurrence.

A thirty-year land-use rulebook gets written while looking like a routine permit. Congress guaranteed the renewal in 185(n) and left every term unguarded in 185(f). A thinner record supports a thinner stipulations package, one easier to issue and harder to contest for thirty years. The previous renewal was built on an environmental impact statement which is why the instrument choice is the story.

What conditions attach to corridor use is the quiet question. It fixes access terms for a generation on the only continuous North Slope to tidewater route the state has, the default path for anything else that ever needs to move between the two. Almost nobody is at the table.

A scoping comment on the docket by Sept. 10 is the cheapest move available, the only step that builds a record before the stipulations exist. After that you’re arguing against a draft, not shaping one. Objections at ADL 63574 close 5 p.m. Sept. 21. Alyeska and its three owners are positioned in both forums. Dalton Highway and North Slope developers needing access roads, gravel, water or crossings are in neither unless they file this week.

Should one state director pick the NEPA instrument that fixes corridor terms for thirty years or does a grant this consequential warrant an EIS by default?

#AlaskaAI #EnergyPolicy #OilAndGas #ArcticInnovation

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 1

Alaska AI

Sydney Scout co-sponsored an ordinance that would bar Anchorage police from adding AI "human-feature" recognition to the Real-Time Crime Center without Assembly approval. Public hearing is September 1st.

Scout represents District 1, North Anchorage, on the Anchorage Assembly, with a term running to 2029.

The ordinance is AO 2026-108 and was introduced and referred on August 4th. According to ADN it would write existing surveillance limits into municipal code and add new ones covering license plate readers, crime center operations, and live camera monitoring. As Alaska Public Media reported, APD couldn't add AI with human-feature recognition capabilities to the network without Assembly approval, subject to temporary authorization and annual reporting.

It would also require a case number for every surveillance-data search, erase individual data after two weeks unless it’s evidence in an active investigation, and bar sharing footage with federal or out-of-state agencies including DHS without a warrant. The binary Scout owns is whether the Assembly decides when algorithmic recognition goes live or APD does.

ADN puts the network’s capacity at up to roughly 750 camera feeds. Alaska’s News Source reported on August 28th that about 238 are currently registered through Axon alongside traffic cameras, drones, and plate readers.

APD says it doesn’t run facial recognition today as the Assembly banned it in 2023. That last fact cuts both ways. Skeptics can fairly argue the 2023 ban already covers the core worry and that AO 2026-108 mostly adds approval friction plus a two-week retention cap that could complicate live investigations. The read here is that the sequencing is still right. A vendor-neutral approval gate is durable in a way a single procurement fight isn’t because it governs whatever tool APD buys next, not just the one on the table now. Scout told ADN, “We need to increase trust before we increase the power of this surveillance system.” The fair criticism is timing. The ordinance rides alongside a pending RTCC expansion of roughly $600,000, AM 524-2026, which makes it easy to read as a guardrail bolted onto one contract rather than standing AI policy.

September 1st settles part of that. Watch whether the AI-approval provision and the two-week retention default survive amendment and whether the guardrails get voted before or after the hardware money heading into the 2027 budget cycle.

Should prior Assembly approval for human-feature recognition live in municipal code or does that put a legislative body in the middle of an operational call it isn’t equipped to make?

#AlaskaAI #AIPolicy #ProcurementReform #ArcticInnovation

1 month ago | [YT] | 0

Alaska AI

Anchorage’s data center ordinance hands the binding siting call to an electric cooperative, not to City Hall. The gate surfaced this week in Fairbanks where the Alaska Municipal League took up data centers.

AO 2026-27 made data centers a conditional use in industrial districts only, then made a written system capacity statement from the serving electrical utility a mandatory part of the application.
Here's how it works:

- Use classification makes data centers conditional in the I-1, I-2 and I-3 industrial districts and no residential district, Anchorage Assembly, adopted 27 March 2026, 10-2.
- Threshold captures facilities needing 20 megawatts or more at peak and splits small from large at 2,000 servers, Planning Director, who waives the 200-foot residential setback only for small ones.
- Electrical statement proves sufficient system capacity at peak before the application is complete, the serving utility, Chugach Electric Association in the Anchorage Bowl.
- Adjudication grants or denies the permit, Planning and Zoning Commission, nine mayoral appointees, five yes votes required no matter how many are seated.
- Water appropriation permits significant water draws with public notice above 5,000 gpd, ADNR.

Control sits on the third layer. The capacity statement is a mandatory application component not a criterion weighed at the hearing. No statement, no complete application, no hearing. Chugach is the largest member-owned electric cooperative in Alaska not a municipal department, and no municipal body can override it. Golden Valley Electric Association COO Nathan Minnema per Alaska’s News Source on August 27th put it plainly. “The larger it gets, the more detailed the analysis gets.” “That would determine if we have the ability to serve it or not.”

The code gives that determination no rebuttal path and that isn’t an oversight. The drafters knew how to write one. In the as-introduced text, an adverse wastewater statement creates a presumption beatable only by clear and convincing evidence. The electrical statement gets nothing. Anchorage turned a private interconnection study into a precondition for public land use approval. The gate went up before the applicants arrived and building it early is defensible. It also set the terms with no counterparty in the room.

The ordinance writes its own escape. Every utility statement requirement is conditioned on connecting to the grid, public water, or public sewer. Behind the meter generation with closed loop cooling triggers none of them. Anchorage priced grid connected compute and left off grid compute comparatively unpriced. Mat-Su Borough has no data center rule, FNSB’s comprehensive plan is in draft, and the AML conference just positioned Anchorage as the statewide template. The copying window is open now.

Should a withheld electrical capacity statement carry a rebuttal path given Anchorage wrote one for wastewater and none for power?

#AlaskaAI #DataCenters #GridPolicy #EnergyPolicy #AIPolicy

1 month ago | [YT] | 0