White House releases America's AI Action Plan

On 23 July 2025 the White House released "Winning the AI Race: America's AI Action Plan", a document setting out how the federal government intends to organise its own work on artificial intelligence ^[1]. It was issued in accordance with an executive order signed in January 2025 on removing barriers to American leadership in AI ^[1]. The plan is written as a list of concrete actions for federal agencies rather than as a statement of principles.

What the plan contains

The document identifies more than 90 federal policy actions, grouped under three pillars: accelerating innovation, building American AI infrastructure, and leading in international diplomacy and security ^[1]. That three-part structure puts export policy, construction and permitting, workforce training, deregulation and government purchasing inside a single framework, so that the pieces are presented as one programme rather than as separate agency efforts.

Exports and diplomacy

On the international side, the plan calls on the Commerce Department and the State Department to partner with industry to deliver secure, full-stack AI export packages to allies, covering hardware, models, software, applications and standards ^[1]. "Full-stack" here refers to the whole set of layers that make up an AI system rather than a single component: the chips it runs on, the trained models, the software around them, the applications built on top, and the technical standards that let the parts work together. Bundling them into one export package means allies would be offered an integrated stack rather than isolated products, and the emphasis on security indicates that promotion of these exports is meant to travel with safeguards.

Infrastructure and workforce

Domestically, the plan calls for expediting and modernising permits for data centres and semiconductor fabrication plants, often called fabs ^[1]. Both are large, slow-to-build physical facilities, and permitting is one of the steps that determines how long a project takes from announcement to operation. Alongside the facilities themselves, the plan asks for new national initiatives to increase the number of workers in occupations such as electricians and HVAC technicians ^[1] — the trades that wire, cool and maintain large computing buildings.

Regulation and procurement

The plan directs the removal of federal regulations that hinder AI development and deployment, and seeks private sector input on which rules should be removed ^[1]. It also calls for updating federal procurement guidelines so that the government only contracts with frontier model developers whose systems are objective and free from top-down ideological bias ^[1]. Procurement works as a lever because the federal government is a large buyer: conditions written into contracts can shape what vendors build and how they describe their systems, without any new statute being passed.

How officials described it

Michael Kratsios, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, said the plan charts a course to cement U.S. dominance in artificial intelligence ^[1]. David Sacks, the AI and Crypto Czar, said it aims to keep the United States leading in innovation, infrastructure and global partnerships while centring American workers ^[1]. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said winning the AI race is non-negotiable and that the world should continue to run on American technology ^[1].

What it changes

The plan is a set of directions to federal agencies, assigning tasks in export packaging, permitting reform, workforce programmes, deregulation and procurement rules. Its significance lies in the breadth of that list: energy and construction policy, trade diplomacy, labour training, regulatory review and purchasing rules are treated as parts of one AI strategy. It also makes the federal government's own buying power, and the technical character of the models it is willing to buy, an explicit instrument of AI policy ^[1].