The Trump administration has released an ambitious "AI Action Plan," outlining a strategy to bolster U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence with a strong emphasis on cybersecurity and information sharing. The plan, published on July 23, 2025, fulfills a key directive from President Trump's January 2025 executive order, "Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence."
A central pillar of the plan is the enhancement of AI cybersecurity. The plan states that "promoting resilient and secure AI development and deployment should be a core activity of the U.S. government." It calls for all use of AI in safety-critical or homeland security applications to be "secure-by-design, robust, and resilient." These systems must be able to detect performance shifts and alert to malicious activities like data poisoning or adversarial attacks.
To achieve these goals, the plan proposes the establishment of an AI Information Sharing and Analysis Center (AI-ISAC). This center, led by the Department of Homeland Security, would promote the sharing of AI-security threat information and intelligence across U.S. critical infrastructure sectors. Additionally, the plan calls for issuing private sector guidance on responding to AI-specific vulnerabilities and threats and ensures that known AI vulnerabilities are shared by Federal agencies to the private sector.
The action plan also addresses the need for national security risk assessments. It calls for the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) to partner with frontier model developers to evaluate their national security risks. CAISI would also evaluate potential security vulnerabilities and malign foreign influence arising from the use of adversaries' AI systems in critical infrastructure.
Beyond domestic security, the plan outlines a strategy for maintaining U.S. global dominance in AI. This includes promoting the export of "full-stack American AI technology packages" and encouraging allies to adopt similar AI protection systems and export controls. The Department of Commerce is called upon to develop new export controls on semiconductor manufacturing sub-systems.
The plan also marks an ideological shift, with an emphasis on removing "red tape and onerous regulation." It scraps the Biden administration's oversight mechanisms and calls for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to remove references to "misinformation, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and climate change" from its AI Risk Management Framework. Furthermore, an executive order titled "Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government" requires federal agencies to only procure AI models that are objective and free from ideological bias.
Overall, the action plan signals a techno-optimist approach, prioritizing innovation and competitiveness on the global stage. While it acknowledges the threats posed by AI, the main thrust is to ensure the United States will "achieve and maintain unquestioned and unchallenged global technological dominance." However, it remains unclear how federal agencies, potentially depleted by layoffs, will be able to implement the strategy's ambitious vision.