BizTech Law Blog

Following Executive Order 14179 from January 23, 2025 titled Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence, President Donald Trump’s administration has unveiled its awaited artificial intelligence (“AI”) roadmap to cement the United States as a front runner in the “race to achieve global dominance in [AI]”.

The plan, titled American’s AI Action Plan (the “Plan”), is a 28-page document that outlines more than 90 federal policy actions under three strategic pillars: (1) accelerating innovation; (2) building American AI infrastructure; and (3) leading in international AI diplomacy and security. As expected following the shift from the Biden administration’s federal AI policy (which was detailed more in the article linked here: A New Executive Order Has Been Issued on Artificial Intelligence | AI Use Development | Foster Swift), the Trump administration’s Plan will have far-reaching implications for businesses, regulators, international partners, and the American workforce.

1. Accelerating Innovation

According to the Trump Administration, this pillar and the policies within it focus on: (a) removing “bureaucratic red tape”; (b) ensuring less arduous regulation on AI; (c) protecting free speech and other American values; (d) encouraging open-source AI systems; (e) investing in and supporting AI’s integration into the workplace; (f) driving the adoption of AI within governmental sectors; and (g) combatting deepfakes and synthetic uses of AI within the media through the legal system.

At the heart of this pillar of the Plan is a push to unencumber private-sector AI development. The White House suggests the existing federal rules and guidelines, Federal Trade Commission actions, and state-wide regulations may burden AI innovation. The Plan goes as far as to say, “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.”

As of the implementation of this Plan, federal contracts with frontier large language model developers must also ensure their systems “are objective and free from top-down ideological bias” to further the Trump administration’s goals to accelerate technological innovation and reject a socially engineered agenda. The federal government is to prioritize investment in emerging technologies to “usher in a new industrial renaissance”.

2. Building American AI Infrastructure

The second pillar of the Plan addresses the physical and digital infrastructure needed to sustain AI’s exponential growth. Some goals under this pillar and within its policies include: (a) streamlining the permit process for AI data centers, manufacturing facilities, and energy infrastructures; (b) updating and expanding the United States’ power grid to withstand additional technological growth; (c) bringing semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States; (d) implementing AI systems into military and intelligence departments; (e) promoting AI cyber defenses, incident responses, and security; and (f) training a skilled American workforce for AI infrastructure.

One of the key proposals under this pillar is to fast-track the construction of data centers and semiconductor fabrication facilities by easing environmental permitting requirements under laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water Act. This approach that may accelerate AI deployment, but it also raises potential environmental and community impact concerns. The Plan also calls for modernizing and expanding the United States power grid to meet AI-driven energy demands, emphasizing increased reliance on nuclear and geothermal energy, which introduces potential environmental implications depending on how such projects are executed.

Moreover, the Plan addresses investment in a workforce tailored to AI as an emerging technology, acknowledging the need for skilled trades such as electricians, advanced HVAC technicians, and other tech-related occupations to keep up with the Trump’s administration vision for “global AI dominance”. The Department of Labor, National Science Foundation, and Department of Education, along with other federal agencies, have been tasked with expanding workforce programs and apprenticeships to support the emerging needs of the AI infrastructure sector and help shape the next generation of the American workforce.

3. Leading In International AI Diplomacy and Security

The third and final pillar of the Plan intends to focus on the following initiatives through its policies: (a) promoting and strengthening the exportation of AI systems created in the United States to our allies and partners; (b) specifically countering China’s influence in international governance; (c) aligning with our allies and partners to protect export controls and strengthen control enforcement; (d) avoiding security vulnerabilities AI technology may create; and (e) investing in biosecurity.

The Trump administration plans to impose secondary tariffs on any allies who undercut the United States’ export controls to “achieve greater international alignment”. Further, the Plan calls for the mandate of rigorous security evaluations of both United States AI systems and foreign countries’ systems utilized in critical infrastructure to identify potential limitations, detect malign foreign influence, and ensure that adversarial technologies are not embedded in systems vital to the United States’ national security.

Pillar III of the Plan also acknowledges that while AI may accelerate breakthroughs in biotechnology, it also poses serious biosecurity risks. Specifically, it warns that AI could enable malicious actors to design harmful pathogens or biomolecules. To mitigate this, the Plan calls for mandatory screening and customer verification requirements for nucleic acid synthesis tools used in federally funded research, replacing existing voluntary standards. It also proposes improved data-sharing among synthesis providers and ongoing national security evaluations. While aimed at prevention, these measures raise important questions about enforcement, privacy, and the potential impact on scientific research and international collaboration.

For more information and specifics about the Plan, the Plan can be accessed via this link from The White House: America’s AI Action Plan.

The implications of the Plan are far-reaching for legal, technology, and compliance professionals. Moreover, businesses operating in AI industries should begin preparing for content neutrality & AI model alignment, evolving federal contract eligibility standards, new opportunities & programs in AI workforce training, and AI infrastructure buildouts as detailed in the Plan.

At Foster Swift, we stay closely informed on the evolving legal and regulatory landscape surrounding artificial intelligence and emerging technologies. For questions related to AI, data privacy, or technology law, please contact an attorney in our Business, Technology, Intellectual Property, or Litigation practice groups for more information.