Overview of America’s AI Action Plan
The United States federal government released Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan on July 23, 2025, under the Trump administration. This policy framework outlines over 90 specific actions designed to accelerate AI innovation, strengthen national AI infrastructure, and establish global leadership in AI development. The plan marks a significant shift from the Biden administration’s AI policy, emphasizing competitive positioning and strategic priorities in AI governance.
The strategy was announced during the Winning the AI Race event, where President Donald Trump formally introduced the plan alongside three executive orders aimed at implementing its provisions. These executive orders, combined with agency-level guidance, serve as the primary mechanisms for execution. The plan also includes measures to address regulatory barriers imposed by individual U.S. states, particularly those with stringent AI restrictions, while integrating a comprehensive security agenda managed through the Cybersecurity and AI Security Innovation Agency (CAISI).
The full text of the plan is available through official channels, including the White House and AI.gov, with additional context provided in the Federal Register via a Request for Information process.
Key Policy Actions and Objectives
The AI Action Plan is structured around three core pillars: accelerating innovation, building AI infrastructure, and leading internationally. Each pillar includes targeted actions to ensure the U.S. maintains a dominant position in AI research, deployment, and global influence.
Accelerating Innovation
- Public-Private Partnerships: The strategy encourages partnerships between federal agencies, academic institutions, and private companies to foster rapid AI advancements.
Building AI Infrastructure
- National AI Infrastructure: The U.S. will invest in AI supercomputing centers and high-performance computing resources to support large-scale AI model training and simulation.
- Cybersecurity and AI Security: CAISI plays a central role in overseeing AI security, including the development of AI-specific cybersecurity frameworks and the establishment of a National AI Security Board to coordinate threat intelligence and incident response.
Implementation and Regulatory Framework
The AI Action Plan is enforced through a combination of executive orders, agency-specific guidance, and legislative coordination.
- Executive Orders: These orders provide immediate directives to federal agencies, including the Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security, to align their AI-related activities with the plan’s objectives.
- Agency Guidance: Each participating agency has issued supplementary guidance to operationalize the plan.
- State-Federal Coordination: The plan includes provisions to resolve tensions between federal AI policies and state-level regulations. States with stringent AI laws—such as those imposing bans on facial recognition or limiting AI-driven autonomous systems—may face federal preemption if their policies are deemed incompatible with national security or economic objectives. This approach aims to create a unified regulatory environment while preserving state innovation hubs.
- Public and Industry Input: The Federal Register’s Request for Information process solicited feedback from stakeholders, including tech companies, academic researchers, and civil society groups.
Security and CAISI’s Role
AI security is a cross-cutting priority in the Action Plan, with the Cybersecurity and AI Security Innovation Agency (CAISI) serving as the lead entity for coordinating security efforts. The plan outlines several security-focused actions to mitigate risks associated with AI deployment.
- AI Threat Intelligence: CAISI will establish a National AI Threat Intelligence Center to monitor emerging risks, such as adversarial AI attacks, deepfake proliferation, and AI-enabled cyber threats.
Required actions
- Agencies to accelerate AI adoption and remove regulatory burdens; federal AI funding to consider a state's regulatory climate - NIST to revise the AI Risk Management Framework to remove references to misinformation, DEI and climate change - Build data-centre and energy infrastructure, promote open-weight models and export the American AI stack - Strengthen evaluations, cybersecurity and incident response for AI through CAISI and sector ISACs