Trump Administration Unveils AI Action Plan

On July 23, the Trump Administration unveiled Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan, which outlines future federal policy actions designed to ensure the U.S. is a leader in global Artificial Intelligence (AI) development across scientific, practical, and creative uses. The plan is divided into three pillars—Accelerating AI Innovation, Building American AI Infrastructure, and Leading in International Diplomacy and Security—with various sub-goals, including exporting American AI models, deregulating data center construction and private AI development, increasing the use of AI in the government, and cementing AI skill development as a core part of education and workforce training. The report also details plans to increase the use of AI in science, and directs the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other agencies to invest in “automated, cloud-enabled labs” for scientific fields, creating “AI-ready” datasets, and prioritizing research that advances AI capabilities.  

Responses to the action plan have ranged from positive to strictly objective. Several COSSA member universities, including the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder), the University of Texas at Austin (UT), and Brown University, received renewed funding for their AI initiatives from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in an effort to align with the Administration’s goals. Georgetown and Stanford have released comprehensive recaps of the report and its implications for academia and research, framed as mostly positive, as well as its limitations, such as a lack of specific actors and mechanisms.  

The report comes as the Trump Administration ramps up its efforts to shape the emerging AI landscape in the US, including through the signing of three executive orders on AI exports, expedited data center permitting, and removing “woke” ideologies from AI models.  

This article was contributed by COSSA Intern Eva Lettiere.