Overview

• The White House rolled out a 28-page AI Action Plan and signed three executive orders at the ‘Winning the AI Race’ summit on July 23, enacting more than 90 recommendations to accelerate U.S. AI development.
• The plan conditions federal AI funding on states’ regulatory environments, threatening to withhold grants from jurisdictions with restrictive AI laws to enforce a single national standard.
• It expedites data center and supercomputer construction by loosening environmental reviews, streamlining permits under key federal laws and leveraging public land for infrastructure projects.
• The Pentagon is ordered to build an autonomous “virtual proving ground” for AI testing and gain priority access to commercial cloud computing in national emergencies to sustain military preeminence.
• Administration directives rescind Biden-era AI safety frameworks—removing diversity, equity and climate mandates—and ban federal use of ideologically “woke” models, prompting objections from privacy advocates, labor groups and state regulators.