White House Science Chief: US-Driven AI Sets Global Standards

The White House’s science advisor said exporting American artificial intelligence as directed in one of President Trump’s executive orders this week would enable the world to speak the same language in regulating and innovating AI.

“We have the best cloud companies, we have the best chips, we have the best models, we have the best applications and all those together create the AI stack,” White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Director Michael Kratsios said in a Consumer Technology Association fireside chat Thursday. “We should go out there and share it with the world and make the entire world run on our American AI stack.”

The White House released its AI Action Plan Wednesday, followed by three new executive orders outlining the nation’s strategic approach to AI development, deployment and adoption. The plan aims to lessen regulatory burdens, build a stronger AI infrastructure to house AI and position the nation on the world stage for partners and allies.

American dominance in AI will require exporting AI to partners and allies while limiting influence and access to adversaries like China, Kratsios said.

Kratsios described the American viewpoint as dividing the world into two groups: “countries of concern,” such as China, and “everyone else,” which includes European allies. He encouraged European allies to use American AI products and capabilities and insisted efforts should be made to deter partners from using Chinese AI or selling American AI capabilities to Chinese entities.

“We want to make it simple and easy to understand what chips are available to them and what the stack looks like,” Kratsios said. “The entire executive order around diplomacy is all about creating a structured program where the Department of Commerce works with all of our great technology companies to create these AI export packages.”

Developing Standards: Going ‘Back to the Basics’

Agencies like NIST will also have to rework the way that they regulate, examine and measure the safety, security and legality of AI tools. Kratsios said NIST will have to return “back to basics,” with a focus on metrology for AI models. In turn, industry will be able to create the standards by which AI will be examined and regulated.

“We need to go back to basics at NIST and back to basics around what NIST exists for, and that is to promulgate best-in-class standards and do critical metrology or measurement science around AI models,” Kratsios said. “We need to be able to be in a position where we’re all talking the same language around how you do an eval.”

Taking a Whole-of-Nation Approach to AI

Kratsios noted that the push for American AI innovation will not solely be led by the White House. Lasting change will need to come from Congress and the private sector.

“The challenge is, and the reality is, that it’s not executive branch action that’s going to solve this problem,” Kratsios said. “We have to find a pathway forward where we can find a solution that meets the bar the President spoke about yesterday, but is also able to pass through Congress.”

Another critical area within the plan is in regard to education and reskilling across the American workforce. Trump’s April executive order aims to broaden access to and proficiency in AI education.

“It is not something that government does alone. It is something that actually business is incentivized to do. Business wants to have employees who can leverage new technologies so that they can succeed and be better employees and be more productive, and everyone is happier,” Kratsios said.

The action plan directed the Labor Department and other agencies to equip American workers with AI skills, building training pipelines for AI-related jobs, analyzing AI’s labor market impacts and rapidly retraining those affected by AI-driven job shifts.

“The U.S. Department of Labor believes AI represents a new frontier of opportunity for workers, but to realize its full promise, we must equip Americans with AI skills, build talent pipelines for AI infrastructure and develop the agility in our workforce system to evolve alongside advances in AI,” Deputy Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling said in a LinkedIn post.

Ramping Up AI Deployment Times

Kratsios also said America “really can’t miss” on integrating AI in national security contexts and advocated for speedier deployment for AI applications throughout the Defense Department.

“I don’t think we’re moving at the speed that we should be,” Kratsios said. “Our adversaries aren’t slowing down anytime soon, and it’s absolutely critical that we have the tools that we need to make sure that we’re positioned for the future.”

Speed was a reigning theme in Trump’s Wednesday remarks regarding accelerating federal permitting of data center infrastructure to keep up with demand.

Kratsios said that national leadership in AI-supported technologies like drones, autonomous driving and health care have made him an optimist, with the goal of creating a “uniform” regulatory environment for AI.

“It’s a very nonpartisan issue to try to solve some of this stuff and continues to be hard,” Kratsios added. “I’m probably more optimistic than I’ve ever been. The tools now at the disposal of folks who are trying to make these changes are more powerful than ever before.”