AI Action Plan Channels Rally Energy, Ignites U.S. Policy Debate

Forbes

2 days ago

WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 23: Jacob Helberg, Hill and Valley co-founder and Under Secretary of State for ... More economic growth designate; NVIDIA co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang; Founders Fund partner and Varda Space Industries co-founder Delian Asparouhov; and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator (EPA) Lee Zeldin give a standing ovation to U.S. President Donald Trump at the "Winning the AI Race" summit.
At the Winning AI Race Summit, President Donald Trump delivered a speech combining campaign-style showmanship with concrete policy proposals for America's future in artificial intelligence. Speaking in his trademark improvisational style, assertive and theatrical, punctuated with rally-style slogans, Trump laid out a private-sector-driven strategy to reassert U.S. dominance in AI.
It is the start of a 'golden age of America,' he said, punctuating the message with chants of 'Drill, baby, drill and build, baby, build!' and urging American technology companies to go 'all in for America.' The president announced an executive order banning what he called woke AI, a move that immediately sparked debate over the government's role in shaping the values embedded in AI systems. Additionally, Trump also called for expedited permitting for data centers and energy projects, and launched an initiative to make the U.S. an 'AI export powerhouse.'
An AI Agenda Tailored For The Tech Industry
Trump's speech outlined the plan to boost America's AI global standing, empowering private-sector growth through deregulation, incentives and diplomacy for market access. He called for clearer copyright rules that would let AI systems learn from publicly available content without being blocked by licensing restrictions.
He advocated for a single federal AI regulatory standard. A mix of state laws, he warned, could slow innovation and strain early-stage companies and small businesses. The president made clear that he sees the private sector, not government, as the primary engine of innovation. He said Washington should enable innovation, not interfere with it, and declared his intention to keep bureaucrats 'out of the way.'
Trump pledged to accelerate the build of AI infrastructure, including data centers, power plants and semiconductor fabs, via deregulation and expedited permitting. He linked this effort to a broader industrial revival, citing the need for electricians, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) technicians and construction workers to meet the rising demand. The speech referred to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the budget reconciliation bill at the core of Trump's second-term agenda with tax cuts, spending adjustments and a debt ceiling increase. It highlighted its provisions allowing companies to deduct capital expenses upfront to accelerate private investment in infrastructure.
Internationally, Trump proposed turning the U.S. into an AI export powerhouse of full-stack solutions that include American AI models, applications and the hardware it runs on. The goal is to promote sales to allied nations, backed by diplomatic and trade support from the State and Commerce Departments.
On energy, he called for an 'all of the above' strategy, including coal, oil, gas and nuclear to meet AI's rapidly growing power demands. According to the Energy Information Administration, China produced more than twice as much energy as the U.S. in 2023. With abundant power generation, China can support large AI factories, even when powered by less energy-efficient chips, such as older generations of Nvidia chips or locally produced semiconductors from Huawei.
Trump vowed to eliminate what he called woke mandates from federally supported AI, criticizing prior policies that tied government funding to diversity goals. President Biden's industrial strategy for semiconductor manufacturing included language encouraging companies to broaden their hiring pipelines. Under a new executive order, the government would be barred from using systems that incorporate ideological screening or require diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) benchmarks.
Lastly, Trump said he would support small tech firms to ensure competition and innovation beyond the dominant platforms, arguing that 'the future of AI shouldn't belong to a few companies alone.'
The AI Plan Draws Mixed Reactions
Critics of the plan warn that it favors entrenched corporate interests while sidelining democratic safeguards and public accountability. Nicholas Garcia, senior policy counsel at Public Knowledge, calls it 'a handout to already-entrenched, powerful tech companies'.
The plan's emphasis on deregulation and expedited permitting has raised alarm among environmental advocates, who point to the potential climate impact of large-scale data centers and fossil fuel-heavy power generation. Civil society organizations created the 'People's AI Action Plan,' a manifesto stating that 'We can't let Big Tech and Big Oil lobbyists write the rules for AI and our economy at the expense of our freedom and equality.'
Civil liberties groups are also sounding the alarm. The ban on woke AI and the proposed removal of misinformation safeguards have drawn criticism from speech and privacy experts. The Electronic Privacy Information Center said the move is 'placing business interests ahead of consumer protection.'
'The government's interest in only supporting AI that upholds free speech gives me pause,' said Manasi Vartak, chief AI architect at Cloudera. 'In an age of misinformation and where AIs are becoming a key source of information, this banner of free speech can easily be misused.' At the same time, she praised the 'support for open-source and open-weight models and datasets, which are essential for innovation and for continuing research.'
The Politics Of AI Policy
Trump's AI strategy uses a familiar Silicon Valley formula: deregulate, invest in infrastructure and trust the market to deliver.
While the plan is ambitious, much of it remains a framework, leaving federal agencies and Congress to fill in the details. Whether it can move from rally to policy will depend on engagement from civil society, which, until now, has remained at the margin of the administration's approach. As agencies begin translating priorities into rules and funding decisions, implementation could drift into partisan favoritism.
But the moment also opens space for new types of governance that move past the usual tug-of-war between regulation and laissez-faire. Policy experts are calling for governance models that pair public-private collaboration with independent audits and oversight systems designed to evolve with the fast-changing AI tools. A report by Fathom, an independent nonprofit, reminds that 'no matter how well-intentioned any government's efforts might be, the reality is that direct government regulation simply cannot keep up with the pace of innovation. Worse yet, it might suffocate it.'
How the plan plays out will influence U.S. competitiveness and the rules that shape AI worldwide. As other nations advance their AI strategies, Trump's private-sector-first emphasis will be tested. The plan positions the U.S. for leadership in technology, innovation and global adoption. But its success will ultimately depend on whether people around the world trust and use American-made AI.