(Bloomberg) —
President Donald Trump signed executive orders to put in motion a new White House plan to boost artificial intelligence development in the US by loosening regulations and expanding energy supplies for data centers.
“From this day forward, it’ll be a policy of the United States to do whatever it takes to lead the world in artificial intelligence,” Trump said Wednesday, July 23, at an AI event hosted by the All-In Podcast and the Hill and Valley Forum, a consortium of tech leaders and lawmakers.
The orders Trump signed include a measure addressing energy and permitting issues for AI infrastructure, a directive to promote AI exports and one that calls for large language models procured by the government to be neutral and unbiased.
“America is the country that started the AI race, and as president of the United States, I’m here today to declare that America is going to win it,” he added.
The so-called AI Action Plan, unveiled earlier that day, recommends revamping the permitting process and streamlining environmental standards to speed AI-related infrastructure projects, while calling for withholding funds from states that place burdensome rules on the emerging technology. The blueprint seeks to make American technology the foundation for AI worldwide while enacting security measures to keep adversaries like China from gaining an edge.
Mandated by Trump shortly after taking office in January, the plan marks the administration’s most significant policy directive on a technology that promises to reshape the global economy.
“Winning this competition will be a test of our capacities, unlike anything since the dawn of the Space Age,” Trump said. “It will challenge us to marshal all of our strength and flex the muscles of American ingenuity and resolve like probably never before.”
Wednesday’s blueprint represents the culmination of Trump’s campaign promise to position America as the world leader in AI, while dismantling what he characterized as a rules-heavy approach under President Joe Biden. Trump rescinded a 2023 order from Biden that had set extensive safety testing requirements and mandated transparency reports from major AI developers. In its place, Trump demanded a new path on AI policy and set a six-month deadline for White House AI czar David Sacks to create it.
Sacks, a venture capitalist who has emerged as one of the administration’s most influential voices on tech policy, along with senior AI adviser Sriram Krishnan and tech policy chief Michael Kratsios spent months cultivating input from key AI leaders.
Regulatory Rollback
Under the recommendations, the federal government would ask businesses and the public about existing regulations that hinder AI adoption, with an eye toward rolling back those rules. The White House’s budget office would also work with federal agencies that have oversee AI-related funding to consider putting limits on those awards “if the state’s AI regulatory regimes may hinder the effectiveness of that funding.”
“We also have to have a single federal standard, not 50 different states regulating this industry of the future. We need one common sense federal standard that supersedes all states, supersedes everybody,” Trump said Wednesday.
The guidelines also call on the federal government to only contract with developers whose AI models are deemed “free from top-down ideological bias” and strip references to misinformation, diversity and equity language, and climate change from risk-management frameworks.
The White House, signaling concern that AI could reshape the labor market, also asks the Education and Labor departments to prioritize skill development and training to assist US workers. It also proposes prioritizing investment in theoretical, computational, and experimental research — a request that comes even as the administration has slashed grants to top-tier research universities.
Trump also said a “common sense” approach would allow AI models to ingest information without concern for possible copyright violations, even as media companies and publishers have expressed worry that AI models could dramatically upend their business models.
“When a person reads a book or an article, you’ve gained great knowledge. That does not mean that you’re violating copyright laws or have to make deals with every content provider,” Trump said.
Race With China
The blueprint suggests countering Chinese AI development by strengthening export controls, including by putting new location verification features in advanced AI chips. The administration also wants to establish a new effort under the Commerce Department to collaborate with the intelligence community to monitor AI developments and chip export control enforcement.
The plan envisions the Commerce Department gathering proposals from the industry on full-stack AI export packages that would allow approved allies to purchase hardware, software, models and applications together. Approved deals would be facilitated by the US Trade and Development Agency, the Export-Import Bank, the US International Development Finance Corporation, among others.
The guidelines were released a little more than a week after the administration moved to ease restrictions it had imposed in April barring Nvidia Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. from selling some AI chips to customers in China. The export curbs were relaxed as part of the trade understanding reached with China in June in exchange for Beijing resuming shipments of rare earths to American buyers.
Sacks and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick have defended the move, saying that letting Nvidia restart shipments of its H20 chips would position the US to compete more effectively abroad and blunt efforts by Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies Co. to gain a bigger slice of the global market.
Energy Components
Trump and his officials have also stressed the importance of ensuring the US has enough power to run energy-hungry AI data centers. In their view, adequate electricity supply is intertwined with national security, essential to keeping the US ahead of global competitors in the AI race.
The plan recommends working to stabilize the existing energy grid and implementing strategies to enhance transmission systems. The document also suggests prioritizing the interconnection of reliable, detachable power sources that could see nuclear and enhanced geothermal plants deployed to help manage a surge in demand.
“We’re unleashing all forms of energy, including natural gas, oil and clean, beautiful coal,” Trump said. “We will be saying those very famous campaign words ‘drill, baby, drill’ and ‘build, baby, build.’ ”
© 2025 Bloomberg L.P.
