A Shift in Priorities Accelerating American AI, but at What Cost?

U.S. President Donald Trump is set to unveil his long-awaited AI Action Plan at a Washington D.C. event on Wednesday, marking his first major address concerning artificial intelligence since taking office for the second time in January. The plan is expected to provide a roadmap of the Trump administration’s strategies, priorities, and concerns around AI, a technology that will likely define the 47th President’s term.

According to a report from Time Magazine, the Trump administration’s AI strategy will focus on three pillars: infrastructure, innovation, and global influence. For infrastructure, the administration is reportedly planning to overhaul permitting rules to speed up the development of AI data centers, which will help AI companies meet the growing energy needs to train and serve their AI models. However, this move has raised concerns that the rise of AI data centers, which suck up immense amounts of energy and water from neighboring communities, could cause energy shortages by the end of the decade unless there’s a rapid increase in energy production.

On the innovation front, Trump is expected to use his AI Action Plan to revive the conversation around blocking state AI laws, which may ultimately block lawmakers from passing meaningful safety and security standards for AI companies. As for the global influence pillar, Trump is expected to put forth a strategy to advance the adoption of American AI models and chips, not just in the U.S., but around the world. Federal officials were spooked by the rise of the DeepSeek, and other Chinese AI labs such as Qwen and Moonshot AI have since become worthy competitors to OpenAI.

Trump is also expected to sign a series of AI-related executive orders on Wednesday, according to The Washington Post. Some of these orders clear the path for faster data center buildouts, while others encourage the export of American technologies. One of the executive orders would crackdown on “woke” AI models, requiring AI companies with federal contracts to ensure their AI models have neutral and unbiased language.

The crackdown on “woke” AI marks the Republican party’s latest attack on Silicon Valley’s historically left-leaning crowd. However, a key question looming around this executive order is who defines whether AI models are neutral or biased, and how they determine it. Trump has long stated he’s an advocate of free speech, so an executive order setting rules around what an AI model can and can’t say may seem counterintuitive.

The White House announced in April that it had received more than 10,000 public comments from companies, local governments, and nonprofit organizations regarding Trump’s AI Action Plan. OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Amazon effectively took the opportunity to submit wishlists of friendly AI policies they’d like to see the Trump administration implement. Many of America’s leading AI model developers asked Trump to use his AI Action plan to guarantee that training large language models on copyrighted material would be fair use, and should therefore be allowed.

However, the Trump administration is unlikely to feature the same safety and security reporting standards that the Biden administration sought to impose. Despite this, polls show that most Americans want AI companies to be held to safety standards. Several state lawmakers are pushing bills that would create safety and security reporting mandates, but they may face opposition from the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers should they contradict Trump’s AI Action Plan.

As the Trump administration’s AI Action Plan is set to be unveiled, it remains to be seen how it will shape the future of AI development and deployment in the United States. With the stakes high and the implications far-reaching, the tech and AI communities will be closely watching the developments in the coming days.