Trump signs executive order directing companies to share AI models with the federal govt ahead of full release
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday (local time) signed an executive order asking companies to provide artificial intelligence (AI) models to the federal government to assess their capabilities ahead of a full release.
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday (local time) signed an executive order asking companies to provide artificial intelligence (AI) models to the federal government to assess their capabilities ahead of a full release.
CNBC reported the development and stated that tech companies will comply with the order voluntarily. The executive order asks them to participate in an evaluation process to assess AI models' cybersecurity capabilities and allows the government to help select 'trusted partners' that will receive early access to the models.
The order stated, "Nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize the creation of a mandatory governmental licensing, preclearance, or permitting requirement."
The executive order was signed by the US President in private and came weeks after he postponed a signing ceremony with prominent tech CEOs because he “didn’t like certain aspects of it,” he told reporters at the time. The order released on Tuesday is vague on specifics, CNBC added.
What does the order state?
A release on the White House's website stated that within 60 days of this order, Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of War, through the Director of NSA, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, through the Director of CISA, in consultation with the White House Chief of Staff, through the National Cyber Director, the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology (APST), and the Secretary of Commerce, through the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and in coordination with other agencies, as appropriate, shall: "develop and maintain a classified benchmarking process to assess the advanced cyber capabilities of AI models and determine the threshold at which an AI model should be designated a 'covered frontier model' for this order, sharing such assessments with AI developers and researchers as appropriate."
Additionally, it noted that such a determination shall be made by the Director of the NSA, in consultation with the National Cyber Director, the APST, the Director of CISA, and other representatives of the Department of War.
They will also design a voluntary framework with AI developers through which developers would be able to engage the federal government to determine whether model(s) under development meet the designation of “covered frontier model," provide the Federal Government with access to covered frontier models, subject to appropriate confidentiality.
AI development in the US
According to CNBC, the order, which is thin on specific details, comes at a crucial time for AI in Washington. On Monday, Claude developer Anthropic announced that it confidentially filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an IPO, and rival OpenAI is also gearing up for a potential offering this year.
Meanwhile, billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX, which also owns AI lab xAI, is set to beat both AI firms to the public market, with a debut set to take place as soon as next week, a move that could value the company well over one trillion dollars.
