America's AI Action Plan is a federal AI strategy document issued by the White House in July 2025, with stated principal authors Michael Kratsios, David Sacks, and Marco Rubio. It was released after the Trump administration rescinded Biden's Executive Order 14110 and signed Executive Order 14179 ("Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence"). The plan is organized around three pillars and frames AI policy primarily through global competition and American leadership rather than risk management.
Pillar I: Accelerate AI innovation
The innovation pillar centers on deregulation: removing state and federal barriers to AI development and conditioning federal funding on states not maintaining "burdensome AI regulations." On content and ideology, it directs revising the NIST AI RMF to remove references to misinformation, DEI, and climate change, and requires federally procured large language models to be "free from top-down ideological bias."
On open development, the plan describes open-weight models as strategically important and calls for improving compute access for startups and academics through the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR). Under the heading "Encourage Open-Source and Open-Weight AI," it gives three stated reasons: such models "have unique value for innovation because startups can use them flexibly without being dependent on a closed model provider"; they "benefit commercial and government adoption of AI because many businesses and governments have sensitive data that they cannot send to closed model vendors"; and they "are essential for academic research." Among the recommended actions is a Department of Commerce convening, led through NTIA, of stakeholders "to help drive adoption of open-source and open-weight models by small and medium-sized businesses." See Open-Weight Frontier Models. To spur adoption, it proposes regulatory sandboxes and domain-specific standards efforts in healthcare, energy, and agriculture. Its workforce component, described as a "worker-first AI agenda," covers AI skill development, an AI Workforce Research Hub under the Department of Labor (DOL), and rapid retraining for workers displaced by AI. The plan states that AI will "complement, not replace" workers while also establishing retraining programs for "AI-related job displacement."
On AI science, the plan calls for investment in interpretability, control, and robustness through DARPA and for building out an evaluations ecosystem. For government adoption, it would formalize the Chief AI Officer Council (CAIOC), mandate federal employee access to frontier LLMs, and create an AI procurement toolbox through the General Services Administration (GSA). For defense, it proposes an AI and Autonomous Systems Virtual Proving Ground and priority cloud access for the Department of Defense (DOD) during a national emergency.
Pillar II: Build American AI infrastructure
The infrastructure pillar addresses permitting, energy, semiconductors, security, and the skilled trades. On permitting, it calls for streamlined NEPA review for data centers and energy projects and for opening federal lands to data center construction. On energy, it calls to stabilize, optimize, and grow the grid, embracing nuclear fission, fusion, and enhanced geothermal. On semiconductors, it would continue the CHIPS program while removing "extraneous policy requirements."
On security, the plan calls for high-security data centers for the military and intelligence community, cybersecurity coordination through an AI Information Sharing and Analysis Center (AI-ISAC), and secure-by-design AI. Its infrastructure workforce element is a national initiative for electricians, HVAC technicians, and other trades needed to build AI infrastructure.
Pillar III: International AI diplomacy and security
The international pillar promotes exporting full-stack American AI packages to allies, bundling hardware, models, software, and standards. It calls for countering Chinese influence in international governance bodies and for evaluating PRC frontier models for alignment with the Chinese Communist Party. On export controls, it would strengthen enforcement, plug loopholes in semiconductor manufacturing controls, and align allied policy. For national security evaluation, it tasks the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) at the Department of Commerce with evaluating frontier models for CBRNE and cyber risks. On biosecurity, it would require nucleic acid synthesis screening for federally funded research.
Analysis and relationships
The plan presents AI governance primarily as a matter of competition and leadership rather than risk management. Rather than directly preempting state AI laws, as EO 14365 attempted, it conditions federal funding on a state's regulatory climate, a mechanism the document positions as less direct. The directed revision of the NIST AI RMF would remove topics (misinformation, DEI, climate) from a voluntary framework that many state laws reference, with potential effects on the standing of NIST AI RMF 1.0. The plan's stated position that AI will "complement, not replace" workers sits alongside its retraining provisions for AI-related job displacement.
The biosecurity provisions on nucleic acid synthesis screening are consistent with positions advocated by Dario Amodei, while the plan's overall posture contrasts with the graduated regulatory approach he has argued for. The DARPA interpretability and control program aligns with research priorities pursued at Anthropic. As a comprehensive statement of the Trump administration's AI policy, the document complements EO 14365, which focused on preemption. Its full-stack export strategy operationalizes the export controls debate; its workforce provisions engage the AI Labor Disruption debate from a more optimistic posture; and its framing on countering Chinese influence connects to AI and Authoritarianism and the Eight Worlds Framework.
Relationships
- supports: Open-Weight Frontier Models — the plan's Pillar I states an affirmative federal position in favour of open-source and open-weight models and directs NTIA-led promotion of their adoption.
- related: America's AI Action Plan — structured legislation-tracker page for the same document.
- related: EO 14365
- related: NIST AI RMF 1.0
- related: Dario Amodei
- related: export controls
- related: AI Labor Disruption
- related: AI and Authoritarianism
- related: Eight Worlds Framework
Provenance
Issued by the White House (Kratsios, Sacks, Rubio), July 2025. Source file: Raw Sources/Americas AI Action Plan.md.