Securities Regulation Daily Wrap Up, AI NEWS—White House outlines its action plan for artificial intelligence, (Jul 23, 2025)
The plan emphasizes efforts to counter Chinese influence in the AI arena, First Amendment values, open-source code, building AI infrastructure, and on-shoring semiconductor manufacturing.
The Trump Administration today issued its action plan for developing U.S. artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and related rules of the road. The plan is heavy on language that would make it easier to build out American AI capabilities while emphasizing free speech, open-source code, and the countering of perceived risks from Chinese competition in the AI space. The action plan thus prominently features regulatory efficiency over explicit guardrails in a shift from the previous Biden Administration AI approach. The publication of Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan also satisfies one of the requirements outlined in the Trump Administration’s prior executive order (Removing Barriers to American Leadership in AI ) that was issued days after President Trump began his second term of office in January 2025.
The Trump Administration's AI/Crypto Czar David Sacks said in a press release announcing the action plan that AI has the potential to transform not only the global economy but also the global balance of power. “To win the AI race, the U.S. must lead in innovation, infrastructure, and global partnerships,” said Sacks. “At the same time, we must center American workers and avoid Orwellian uses of AI. This Action Plan provides a roadmap for doing that.”
The new plan divides into three pillars: (1) the first pillar is focused on increasing the pace of innovation in the AI space; (2) the second pillar emphasizes the build-out of U.S. AI infrastructure; and (3) the third pillar seeks to counter global AI competition, especially from China, while also positioning the U.S. to lead on topics such as AI diplomacy and security.
With respect to Pillar I, a key goal will be to create a playing field where private-sector firms can succeed in developing AI, which the plan suggests is a playing field “unencumbered by bureaucratic red tape.” The plan notes that President Trump already rescinded the Biden Administration’s executive order on AI for being too restrictive of the AI industry. While much of Pillar I’s goals will focus on eliminating federal rules and guidance that may hinder AI development, the Trump Administration appears poised to target state AI limits that it considers to be too tough.
“The Federal government should not allow AI-related Federal funding to be directed toward states with burdensome AI regulations that waste these funds, but should also not interfere with states’ rights to pass prudent laws that are not unduly restrictive to innovation,” said the plan. The second half of that sentence might suggest a modest difference as compared to the 10-year moratorium on state AI regulations that Senators voted to remove from the recently enacted One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
However, additional language in the White House plan suggests that the Office of Management and Budget will work with federal agencies that run discretionary funding programs to limit funding to states the Trump Administration believes have AI regulations that are too restrictive. Specifically, OMB and other federal agencies would “consider a state’s AI regulatory climate when making funding decisions and limit funding if the state’s AI regulatory regimes may hinder the effectiveness of that funding or award.”
According to the plan, the White House views the AI landscape as one in which nearly unfettered free speech should occur. “It is essential that these systems be built from the ground up with freedom of speech and expression in mind,” said the plan.
But that defense of freedom of speech also comes with significant caveats. For example, the Commerce Department is directed to revise the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) AI Risk Management Framework for the purpose of deleting references to misinformation, diversity, equity, and inclusion as well as to climate change. Moreover, the federal government could only enter into contracts with “frontier large language model (LLM) developers who ensure that their systems are objective and free from top-down ideological bias.”
Pillar I also includes a directive to enable open-source and open-weight AI code. The plan suggests that open-source AI products can enable financially strapped startups and academic institutions to enter or remain in the AI field.
Pillar II of the plan focuses on building AI-related infrastructure, something the plan says is necessary because AI is “the first digital service in modern life that challenges America to build vastly greater energy generation than we have today.” Here, the plan urges the federal government to reform the implementation of federal environmental laws to facilitate the siting and building of AI data centers.
The electric grid would also be the focus of improvements aimed at stabilizing it and modernizing it to carry greater capacity. The plan further calls on the federal government to “prevent the premature decommissioning of critical power generation resources.” Although the plan does not mention any specific sources by name, presumably the plan would include coal and related sources of electrical power generation.
Under Pillar II, the federal government would attempt to fast-track the on-shoring of semiconductor manufacturing to the U.S. by streamlining the implementation of provisions contained in the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. This would be achieved by “removing all extraneous policy requirements for CHIPS-funded semiconductor manufacturing projects,” said the plan.
Pillar III is in large part about countering perceived AI risks from Chinese competition in the field but also includes an effort to distance the U.S. from international agreements on AI that have certain characteristics.
“The United States supports likeminded nations working together to encourage the development of AI in line with our shared values,” said the plan. “But too many of these efforts have advocated for burdensome regulations, vague ‘codes of conduct’ that promote cultural agendas that do not align with American values, or have been influenced by Chinese companies attempting to shape standards for facial recognition and surveillance.”
Pillar III also seeks to increase enforcement of U.S. export controls as they relate to AI products and services. The federal government also would take steps to better ensure biosecurity by screening for malicious AI activities and by requiring institutions that receive federal funding to have customer verification procedures.
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