The Trump administration has launched a sweeping new strategy aimed at ensuring the United States “wins” the global race to advance artificial intelligence.

Announcing the Winning the Race – America’s AI Action Plan at the Winning the AI Race summit in Washington DC on July 23, President Donald Trump pledged that America would… win at AI, while dismantling regulatory barriers to industry growth.

“America is the country that started the AI race. And as president of the United States, I’m here today to declare that America is going to win it,” Trump said during his speech. He added that the competition with China for AI dominance is “a fight that will define the 21st century.”

The newly unveiled AI Action Plan is a 28-page blueprint containing more than 90 policy recommendations.

Insane rhetoric aside, the document could prove to be decisive – it’s designed to accelerate the construction of energy-intensive data centres, expand the global sale of U.S. AI technologies, and reduce what the administration describes as “red tape” that hinders innovation.

A Three-Pillar Strategy

The plan rests on three key pillars: “Accelerate AI Innovation,” “Build American AI Infrastructure,” and “Lead in International AI Diplomacy and Security.” It sets out a roadmap for rapid technological growth, from domestic infrastructure investment to international AI standard-setting.

“Today, a new frontier of scientific discovery lies before us, defined by transformative technologies such as artificial intelligence… Breakthroughs in these fields have the potential to reshape the global balance of power, spark entirely new industries, and revolutionise the way we live and work.

“As our global competitors race to exploit these technologies, it is a national security imperative for the United States to achieve and maintain unquestioned and unchallenged global technological dominance,” Trump stated in the plan’s preamble.

The administration plans to begin implementation immediately, with Trump signing several executive orders.

These will include directives for the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and the Export-Import Bank to promote the deployment of American AI technology abroad. Additionally, the plan requires that any large language models used by the federal government be neutral and “unbiased,” though the document doesn’t go into detail as to how this can be quantified and addressed.

Deregulation and Infrastructure Expansion

A central theme of the plan is deregulation. It calls for the rejection of “radical climate dogma and bureaucratic red tape” that could slow the expansion of AI infrastructure, including the construction of data centres and new power plants, which Trump has said may be coal-powered.

Giving a speech in Washington DC, Trump emphasised the need for streamlined rules during his summit speech, declaring: “America must once again be a country where innovators are rewarded with a green light, not strangled with red tape.”

The administration is also taking aim at state-level AI regulations.

A previous attempt to impose a 10-year ban on states enacting their own AI laws was removed from an earlier legislative package, but the Action Plan now calls for withholding federal funding from states that impose “burdensome AI regulations.”

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been tasked with evaluating whether such state laws interfere with federal mandates under the Communications Act of 1934.

The plan also proposes updating federal procurement rules to ensure that frontier AI models used by the government are “objective and free from top-down ideological bias.” Again, details on enforcement mechanisms around this remain unclear.

Reversing Biden-Era Policies

The plan represents a sharp departure from policies under former president Joe Biden. During Biden’s administration, export restrictions were placed on AI chips destined for China and other countries over national security concerns. Trump has now rescinded Biden’s executive order aimed at promoting competition, protecting consumers, and addressing AI-driven misinformation.

The administration has also overturned Biden’s “AI diffusion rule,” which capped the amount of U.S. AI computing capacity that certain countries could acquire through American chip imports. Additionally, the plan calls for reviewing all Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigations initiated under Biden to ensure they “do not advance theories of liability that unduly burden AI innovation.”

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Alarmingly, The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s AI Risk Management Framework will also be revisited to “eliminate references to misinformation, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and climate change.”

Global Ambitions and Industry Impact

The Action Plan places significant emphasis on exporting U.S. AI leadership. It encourages full-stack partnerships with allied nations — combining chips, software, models, and standards — and directs the Commerce and State Departments to coordinate with industry to deliver secure AI technologies abroad.

An expansion of AI exports is likely to benefit major U.S. AI companies, including chip manufacturers Nvidia and AMD, as well as AI model developers such as Alphabet’s Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Meta.

To defend national interests, the plan calls for tighter restrictions on outbound investment in adversarial nations, measures to protect against intellectual property theft, and ensuring that AI infrastructure is free from foreign technology — particularly from China.

Criticism and Challenges

While the plan outlines a bold vision for U.S. AI dominance, critics argue that its deregulatory focus and token committments to transparency and the tackling of bias and misinformation prioritises industry acceleration at the expense of public safeguards.

The document largely sidesteps concerns raised during public consultations, such as the need for transparency, accountability, and protections against bias, disinformation, and surveillance.

The plan also calls for open-sourcing AI models, but beyond this, it offers few regulatory guardrails for how companies should deploy AI responsibly.

If it wasn’t a technological wild west before, it certainly is now.