The Trump administration unveiled a new artificial intelligence (AI) blueprint on Wednesday, aiming to loosen environmental rules and vastly expand AI exports to allies. This move seeks to maintain America’s technological edge over China in the critical AI sector.
President Donald Trump marked the plan’s release with a speech, emphasizing the stakes of the technological arms race with China. He called it a fight that will define the 21st century.
“America is the country that started the AI race. And as President of the United States, I’m here today to declare that America is going to win it,” Trump stated.
The comprehensive plan, which includes approximately ‘90 recommendations’, calls for the broad export of U.S. AI software and hardware. It also aims to crack down on state laws deemed too restrictive for AI to flourish, a significant shift from predecessor Joe Biden’s “high fence” approach that limited global access to coveted AI chips.
“We also have to have a single federal standard, not 50 different states regulating this industry in the future,” Trump said.
Full-stack AI export packages
Michael Kratsios, head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, told reporters on Wednesday that the Departments of Commerce and State will partner with the industry to “deliver secure full-stack AI export packages, including hardware models, software applications, and standards to America’s friends and allies around the world.”
This expansion in exports of a full suite of AI products could benefit AI chip powerhouses like ‘Nvidia’ and ‘AMD’, as well as AI model giants such as ‘Alphabet’s Google’, ‘Microsoft’, ‘OpenAI’, and ‘Facebook parent Meta’.
On Wednesday, Trump signed three executive orders incorporating elements of the action plan. These orders include the loosening of environmental rules, establishing new guidelines for chip exports, and seeking to limit political bias in AI technology.
Biden had previously expressed concerns that U.S. adversaries like China could harness AI chips produced by companies such as Nvidia and AMD to bolster their military and harm allies. The former president, who left office in January, imposed a raft of restrictions on U.S. exports of AI chips to China and other countries, fearing the semiconductors could be diverted to America’s top global rival.
Protecting consumers
Trump rescinded Biden’s executive order aimed at promoting competition, protecting consumers, and ensuring AI was not used for misinformation. He also rescinded Biden’s “AI diffusion rule,” which capped the amount of American AI computing capacity some countries were allowed to obtain via U.S. AI chip imports.
“Our edge [in AI] is not something that we can sort of rest on our laurels,” Vice President JD Vance said in a separate appearance at the event, organized by White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks and his co-hosts on the “All-In” podcast.
“If we’re regulating ourselves to death and allowing the Chinese to catch up to us, that’s not something…we should blame the Chinese for…that is something we should blame our own leaders for, for having stupid policies that allow other countries to catch up with America,” Vance added.
According to a senior administration official, the new AI plan does not address national security concerns around Nvidia’s H20 chip, which powers AI models and was designed to skirt previous restrictions on Chinese AI chip access.
Trump had blocked the export of the H20 to China in April but allowed the company to resume sales earlier this month, sparking rare public criticism from fellow Republicans.
Fast-tracking data centers
The plan also calls for ‘fast-tracking the construction of data centers’ by loosening environmental regulations and utilizing federal land to expedite project development, including necessary power supplies.
The administration will seek to establish new exclusions for data centers under the National Environmental Policy Act and streamline permits under the Clean Water Act.
Trump had directed his administration in January to develop this plan.
Big Tech
Reuters previously reported that Trump is expected to take additional actions in the coming weeks to help Big Tech secure the vast amounts of electricity needed to power the energy-guzzling data centers crucial for the rapid expansion of AI.
U.S. power demand is hitting record highs this year after nearly two decades of stagnation as AI and cloud computing data centers balloon in number and size across the country.
