New Federal AI Action Plan Prioritizes Deregulation, Infrastructure, and Global Leadership

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The White House released on July 23, 2025, Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan (“AI Action Plan”) pursuant to President Trump’s Executive Order 14179, Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence. The AI Action Plan identifies over 90 Federal policy actions across three pillars that the Trump Administration plans to address:

1. Accelerating AI Innovation;
2. Building American AI Infrastructure; and
3. Leading in International AI Diplomacy and Security.

In addition to launching the Administration’s AI Action Plan, during an AI summit held on July 23, President Trump signed three Executive Orders:

• Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government;
• Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure; and
• Promoting the Export of the American AI Technology Stack.

The Trump Administration seeks to accelerate AI innovation by removing regulatory roadblocks and “ideological biases.” To speed up the building of U.S. AI infrastructure, the Trump Administration intends to modify the environmental permitting system and fast-track energy projects. Internationally, the Trump Administration will actively promote U.S. exports and work with “like-minded” countries to advocate an international AI governance approach aligned with the Administration’s values.

Notably, the Introduction to the AI Action plan was signed by Michael Kratsios, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, David Sacks, Special Advisor for AI and Crypto, and Marco Rubio, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, who describe the potential of AI to usher in “[a]n industrial revolution, an information revolution, and a renaissance—all at once.”

The following provides an overview of some of the key policy actions identified in the AI Action Plan.

Highlights of the AI Action Plan

1. Accelerating AI Innovation

The AI Action Plan outlines 15 key conditions that it considers essential to accelerate AI innovation. These include eliminating “red tape” and “onerous regulation”; ensuring frontier AI technologies uphold free speech and American values; promoting open-source and open-weight AI; supporting the next generation of manufacturing; creating world-class datasets; safeguarding commercial and government AI innovations; and addressing the legal challenges posed by synthetic media. For each of these conditions, the AI Action Plan recommends specific policy actions. Below is a summary of the recommended actions in six of these focus areas.

Removing Red Tape and Onerous Regulation

One theme of the Trump Administration’s approach is that the U.S. private sector must be unencumbered by bureaucratic red tape. As an initial step, in January, President Trump issued an Executive Order “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence” which rescinded President Biden’s Executive Order 14110 on AI in January, with the purpose of removing barriers to American AI innovation and retain global leadership by the United States in AI. Likewise, the AI Action Plan asserts that AI is too vital to “smother in bureaucracy” at this stage of development, whether at the state or federal level. To address this concern, the AI Action Plan recommends several policy actions to reduce regulatory barriers:

• Federal funding decisions: Federal agencies administering AI-related discretionary funding programs to consider a state’s AI regulatory climate when making funding decisions and may limit funding if state-level regulations are hindering the effectiveness of federally supported projects.
• FCC review of state regulations: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to evaluate whether state AI regulations interfere with its responsibilities under the Communications Act of 1934.
• Regulatory feedback initiative: The federal government to launch a Request for Information to gather input from businesses and the public about existing federal regulations that hinder AI innovation and adoption and to work with relevant agencies to take appropriate action.
• FTC investigation review: All ongoing Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigations initiated under the previous administration along with final orders, consent decrees, and injunctions to be reviewed to ensure they do not advance theories of liability that unduly burden AI innovation. Under the Biden Administration, the FTC actively targeted AI uses that it alleged were unfair and deceptive trade practices under the FTC Act. See The FTC Brings Algorithmic Bias into Sharp Focus | Morrison Foerster.

Ensuring Frontier AI Protects Free Speech and American Values

The AI Action Plan’s recommended policy actions include:

• Revising federal standards: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) AI Risk Management Framework to be updated to eliminate references to misinformation, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and climate change.
• Procurement reforms: Federal procurement guidelines to be revised to ensure that the government only contracts with frontier large language model (LLM) developers who ensure that their systems are objective and free from top-down ideological bias.

Encouraging Open-Source and Open-Weight AI

Recognizing that decisions on whether and how to release an open or closed model is fundamentally up to the developer, the Action Plan advocates for creating a supportive environment for open models. Recommended policy actions include:

• Enhancing access to compute: Improving the financial market for compute to ensure access to large-scale computing power for startups and academics.
• Expanding collaboration: Increasing the research community’s access to world-class private sector computing, models, data, and software resource by partnering with leading technology companies as part of the National AI Research Resource pilot.

Supporting Next-Generation Manufacturing

The AI Action Plan calls for strategic federal investment in emerging technologies such as autonomous drones, self-driving cars, and robotics. Recommended policy actions include:

• Federal investment in manufacturing technologies: Investing in developing and scaling foundational and translational manufacturing technologies via the Departments of Defense, Commerce, and Energy, the National Science Foundation, and other federal agencies.
• Addressing supply chain constraints: Convening industry and government stakeholders to identify supply chain challenges to American robotics and drone manufacturing.

Protecting Commercial and Government AI Innovations

The Action Plan states that to preserve American leadership in AI, the federal government must work closely with industry to appropriately balance the dissemination of cutting-edge AI technologies with national security interests. The federal government must also effectively address security risks to U.S. AI companies, talent, intellectual property, and systems. Recommended policy actions include the federal government partnering with leading American AI developers to enable the private sector to actively protect AI innovations from security risks, including malicious cyber actors, insider threats, and others.

Combat Synthetic Media in the Legal System

The AI Action Plan highlights the growing threat posed by malicious deepfakes, whether by audio recordings, videos, or photos. While President Trump signed the TAKE IT DOWN Act on May 20, 2025, to protect against sexually explicit, non-consensual deepfakes, the AI Action Plan emphasizes further action is needed. Recommended policy actions include:

• Advancing forensic standards: Consider developing NIST’s Guardians of Forensic Evidence deepfake evaluation program into a formal guideline and a companion voluntary forensic benchmark.
• Guidance for adjudicative bodies: Issue guidance to agencies that engage in adjudications to explore adopting a deepfake standard like the proposed Federal Rules of Evidence Rule 901(c) under consideration by the Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules.
• Engagement in rulemaking: File formal comments on any proposed deepfake-related additions to the Federal Rules of Evidence.

2. Building American AI Infrastructure

The AI Action Plan identifies certain conditions necessary to build American AI infrastructure. These include streamlining permitting for data centers, semiconductor manufacturing facilities, and energy infrastructure while guaranteeing security; restoring American semiconductor manufacturing; bolstering critical infrastructure cybersecurity; and promoting mature federal capacity for AI incident response.

Streamlining Permitting for AI Infrastructure While Ensuring Security

The Trump Administration recognizes that AI requires new infrastructure, i.e., factories to produce chips, data centers to run those chips, and new sources of energy to power it all, and believes “America’s environmental permitting system and other regulations make it almost impossible to build this infrastructure” in the United States at the pace required.

Recommended policy actions include:

• Federal permitting reform: Considering a nationwide Clean Water Act Section 404 permit for data centers, and, if adopted, ensuring that this permit does not require a Pre-Construction Notification and covers development sites consistent with the size of a modern AI data center.
• Using federal land: Directing agencies with significant land holdings to identify and make available federal land for data center construction and associated energy infrastructure.
• Environmental streamlining: Expediting environmental permitting by streamlining or reducing regulations under the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, and other relevant environmental laws.

Restoring American Semiconductor Manufacturing

The AI Action Plan emphasizes the importance of bringing semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States. Recommended policy actions include:

• Removing non-core requirements: Eliminating “extraneous” policy requirements for CHIPS‑funded semiconductor manufacturing projects.
• Targeted grant review: Reviewing semiconductor grant and research programs to ensure that they accelerate the integration of advanced AI tools into semiconductor manufacturing.

Strengthening Cybersecurity for Critical Infrastructure

According to the AI Action Plan, “[a]s AI systems advance in coding and software engineering capabilities, their utility as tools of both cyber offense and defense will expand. . . . All use of AI in safety-critical or homeland security applications should entail the use of secure-by-design, robust, and resilient AI systems that are instrumented to detect performance shifts, and alert to potential malicious activities like data poisoning or adversarial example attacks.” Recommended policy actions include:

• Establishing an AI-ISAC: Creating an AI Information Sharing and Analysis Center (AI-ISAC) to promote the exchange of AI-security threat information and intelligence across U.S. critical infrastructure sectors.
• Private sector guidance: Issuing and maintaining guidance to private sector entities on remediating and responding to AI-specific vulnerabilities and threats.

Promoting Mature Federal Capacity for AI Incident Response

The AI Action Plan calls for the federal government to promote the development and incorporation of AI Incident Response actions into existing incident response doctrine and best-practices for both the public and private sectors. Recommended policy actions include:

• Collaboration to enhance response capabilities: Partnering with AI and cybersecurity industries to ensure AI is included in the establishment of standards, response frameworks, best practices, and technical capabilities of incident response teams.

3. Advancing U.S. Leadership in International AI Diplomacy and Security

The AI Action Plan outlines seven key conditions the Administration believes are needed to position the United States as the global leader in AI diplomacy and security. These include: exporting American AI to allies and partners; countering Chinese influence in international governance bodies; strengthening enforcement of AI compute export controls; closing loopholes in existing semiconductor manufacturing export controls; aligning global protection measures; ensuring the United States is at the forefront of evaluating national security risks in frontier models; and investing in biosecurity.

Exporting American AI to Allies and Partners

To meet global demand for AI and stop U.S. allies from becoming dependent on foreign adversary technology, the AI Action Plan proposes exporting the U.S.’s full AI technology stack—hardware, models, software, applications, and standards—to all countries willing to join America’s AI alliance. The Trump Administration plans to establish and operationalize a program within the Department of Commerce (DOC) aimed at gathering proposals from industry consortia for full-stack AI export packages. Once consortia are selected by Commerce, the Economic Diplomacy Action Group, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, the Export-Import Bank, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, and the Department of State should coordinate with Commerce to facilitate deals that meet U.S.-approved security requirements and standards.

Countering Chinese Influence in International Governance Bodies

The AI Action Plan calls on the United States to work with like-minded countries to encourage the development of AI in line with their shared values. The AI Action Plan criticizes many existing international AI governance initiatives as advocating for burdensome regulations, “codes of conduct” that promote “cultural agendas that do not align with American values,” or are influenced by Chinese companies attempting to shape standards for facial recognition and surveillance. The Administration intends to “vigorously advocate for international AI governance approaches that promote innovation, reflect American values, and counter authoritarian influence.”

Strengthening Enforcement of AI Compute Export Controls

The Administration plans to strengthen enforcement of AI compute export controls by:

• Location verification tools: Exploring new and existing location verification features on advanced AI compute to ensure the chips are not in countries of concern.
• Intelligence coordination: Collaborating with the U.S. Intelligence Community officials on global chip export control enforcement, including monitoring emerging technology developments in AI compute to ensure full coverage of possible countries or regions where chips are being diverted.

Closing Loopholes in Semiconductor Manufacturing Export Controls

To preserve U.S. leadership in semiconductor innovation and prevent adversaries from exploiting American innovations to their own ends in ways that undermine U.S. national security, the AI Action Plan calls for new measures to address gaps in semiconductor manufacturing export controls, coupled with enhanced enforcement. The AI Action Plan calls for the development of new export controls on semiconductor manufacturing sub-systems.

Aligning Global Protection Measures

U.S. partners and allies should be encouraged to follow U.S. controls and not “backfill.” If they do, the United States should use tools such as the Foreign Direct Product Rule and secondary tariffs to achieve greater international alignment. Recommended policy actions include:

• Harmonizing protections in academia and research: Developing, implementing, and sharing information on complementary technology protection measures, including in basic research and higher education, to mitigate risks from strategic adversaries and concerning entities.
• Strategic technology diplomacy: Developing a diplomatic strategy for an AI global alliance to align incentives and policy levers across government to induce key allies to adopt complementary AI protection systems and export controls across the supply chain. This plan should aim to ensure that American allies do not supply adversaries with technologies of which the United States is seeking to impose export controls.
• Plurilateral control frameworks: Promoting plurilateral controls for the AI tech stack and avoiding the sole reliance on multilateral treaty bodies to accomplish this objective, while also encompassing existing U.S. controls and all future controls to level the playing field between United States and allied controls.
• Coordinated export control enforcement: Working with allies to ensure they adopt U.S. export controls, working together with the United States to develop new controls, and prohibiting U.S. adversaries from supplying their defense-industrial base or acquiring controlling stakes in defense suppliers.

Ensuring the U.S. Government is at the Forefront of Evaluating National Security Risks in Frontier Models

Recommended policy actions include:

• Risk evaluation: Partnering with frontier AI developers to identify and assess national security risks.
• Foreign influence mitigation: Evaluating and assessing potential security vulnerabilities and malign foreign influence arising from the use of adversaries’ AI systems in critical infrastructure and elsewhere in the American economy, including the possibility of backdoors and other malicious behavior.
• Expert recruitment: Prioritizing the hiring of leading AI researchers within federal agencies to ensure that the government continues to offer cutting-edge evaluations and analysis of AI systems.
• Security assessment: Building, maintaining, and updating as necessary national security-related AI evaluations through collaboration between key government agencies and relevant research institutions.

Investing in Biosecurity

According to the AI Action Plan, “AI will unlock nearly limitless potential in biology: cures for new diseases, novel industrial use cases, and more. At the same time, it could create new pathways for malicious actors to synthesize harmful pathogens and other biomolecules.” The AI Action Plan advocates for a multi-tiered approach designed to screen for malicious actors, along with new tools and infrastructure for more effective screening. Recommended Policy Actions include:

• Mandatory synthesis screening: Requiring all federally funded research institutions to use nucleic acid synthesis tools and synthesis providers that have robust nucleic acid sequence screening and customer verification procedures, backed by enforceable compliance mechanisms.
• Data-sharing: Convening government and industry stakeholders to develop a mechanism to facilitate data sharing between nucleic acid synthesis providers to screen for potentially fraudulent or malicious customers.
• Security evaluations: Building, maintaining, and updating as necessary national security-related AI evaluations through collaboration between key government agencies and relevant research institutions.

Executive Orders

Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government

This Executive Order directs agency heads to procure only large language models (LLMs) that adhere to “Unbiased AI Principles,” described as: (1) truth-seeking: the LLMs must be truthful and prioritize historical accuracy, scientific inquiry, and objectivity, and acknowledge uncertainty where reliable information is incomplete or contradictory; and (2) ideological neutrality: the LLMs must be neutral, nonpartisan tools that do not manipulate responses in favor of “ideological dogmas like DEI,” and developers will not intentionally encode partisan or ideological judgments into an LLM’s outputs unless those judgments are prompted by or readily accessible to the end user. See the White House Fact Sheet on this Executive Order.

Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure

This Executive Order, among other things: (1) directs the Secretary of Commerce to launch an initiative to provide financial support, such as loans, grants, and tax incentives, for select projects; and (2) repeals Biden EO 14141, which imposed climate-related conditions on the construction of AI data centers on federal lands. See the White House Fact Sheet on this Executive Order.

Promoting the Export of the American AI Technology Stack

This Executive Order requires the Secretary of Commerce to establish and implement the American AI Exports Program to support the development and deployment of U.S. full-stack AI export packages, which include hardware, data systems, AI models, cybersecurity measures, applications for sectors such as healthcare, education, agriculture, and transportation. See the White House Fact Sheet on this Executive Order.

Additional information can be found at AI.Gov. Read the White House press release.

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