Washington is setting its sights on dramatically accelerating the development of artificial intelligence through extensive deregulation, infrastructure strengthening and strategic technology exports. The new ‘AI Roadmap’ is a roadmap to ensure global hegemony for the US in a key future technology, but it also raises serious questions about the costs of such an approach.
Donald Trump’ s administration has unveiled a 20-page document that sets an aggressive new course for the United States in the field of artificial intelligence. The plan, a political statement of intent, focuses on three fundamental goals: maximising the acceleration of innovation, expanding domestic AI infrastructure and promoting US technology to allies to set global standards. The strategy’s main driver is competition with China and its key tool is radical deregulation.
The three pillars of Washington’s strategy
The new White House policy is based on a coherent vision in which technological dominance is synonymous with national security and global influence.
- Accelerating innovation through deregulation: At the core of the plan is the identification and elimination of any bureaucratic or legal barriers that may slow down the development or implementation of AI. This approach assumes that regulation is inherently a brake on progress.
- StrengtheningAI infrastructure: the plan calls for strategic investment and facilitation to build key elements of the AI ecosystem: data centres, semiconductor factories and, crucially, an energy infrastructure capable of meeting the technology’s growing appetite for energy.
- Exporting technology and building alliances: The third pillar is an offensive in international markets. The aim is for allies and partner countries to base their AI systems on US solutions, with the aim of naturally making them the global standard and making the rest of the world dependent on US technology.
Regulatory fire: the heart of the action plan
The most momentous element of the strategy is an unprecedented push to remove regulatory obstacles. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has been tasked with reviewing and potentially repealing any regulations, standards or guidance that “unnecessarily impede” the development of AI. In practice, this means a systemic regulatory hunt.
Moreover, the plan would put pressure on individual states. Federal funds for AI research and development would be directed away from states whose local regulations are deemed too restrictive. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), in turn, are to investigate whether state regulations interfere with federal goals, opening the door to challenge them. Industry analysts point out that this approach gives technology companies exactly what they have long sought: a free hand to act.
Changing ideological framework and the issue of copyright
Trump’s plan goes beyond pure technology and into the ideological realm. The document explicitly calls for the removal of references to concepts such as ‘diversity, equality and inclusion’ (DEI) from the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) AI risk management framework.
The federal government is also expected to favour in cooperation those developers of large language models (LLMs) whose systems are deemed to be ‘objective’ and free of ‘ideological bias’. This move could lead to legal disputes and further polarisation in the debate on algorithm neutrality.
Another controversial point is the issue of copyright. The administration suggests that the requirement to obtain licences and pay for copyrighted material used to train AI models is a barrier to innovation. This position is a direct hit to the interests of the creative industries, publishers and artists who demand compensation for the use of their work.
Infrastructure for the industry of the future
Aware of AI’s huge demand for computing power and energy, the administration plans to make investment processes much easier. Regulations slowing down the construction of data centres and chip factories are to be reduced. The plan also envisages the expansion of the power grid to meet the growing demand. In this context, climate protection initiatives that could interfere with the development of the energy-intensive AI industry are to be marginalised.
Global chessboard
All these activities have one clear overarching goal: to win the technology race with China. The documentary portrays AI development as a zero-sum game in which there are only two parties: The US and its allies and the rest of the world. The technology export strategy aims to strengthen ties with partners while strengthening export controls on key components to hinder the development of competitors.
Prospects and risks
“The AI Action Plan is, for now, a roadmap and not a binding law. However, it heralds a series of implementing regulations and sends a clear message to all government agencies and to the market. It is a vision of a world in which the rush towards innovation in artificial intelligence justifies the setting aside of many existing priorities: from regulations protecting civil rights, to climate policy, to well-established principles of copyright law.
The US is putting almost everything on the line, believing that the prize is technological and geopolitical supremacy for decades. The question that remains open is whether the potential benefits of dominating the AI era are worth the risks of dismantling the existing regulatory and ethical framework.
