OpenAI and PNNL collaborate to accelerate federal permitting

OpenAI and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have announced a partnership to explore how artificial intelligence can accelerate the federal permitting process in the United States. The initiative focuses on using AI agents to automate and improve the drafting of documents related to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

DraftNEPABench: a new benchmark for AI

As part of this collaboration, DraftNEPABench has been developed, a new benchmark designed to evaluate the capabilities of AI agents in performing tasks related to the drafting of NEPA documents. Initial results show that AI has the potential to reduce drafting time by up to 15%, a significant improvement that could streamline the approval processes for infrastructure projects.

This partnership highlights how AI can be applied to improve the efficiency of the public sector, reducing the time required for infrastructure reviews and accelerating the implementation of critical projects.