As of July 23, 2025, the White House has officially designated artificial intelligence not only a strategic priority, but a sweeping industrial, informational, and cultural revolution—one the United States fully intends to lead. The newly released AI Action Plan lays out this vision across three interconnected pillars: (1) Accelerating AI Innovation, (2) Building American AI Infrastructure, and (3) Leading International AI Diplomacy and Security. This overview highlights how these policies may reshape compliance standards, funding eligibility, content authentication, and global licensing arrangements.
Pillar I: Accelerating AI Innovation
The first pillar signals a bold deregulatory stance. The administration continues its rollback of prior guardrails, following the Trump administration’s earlier revocation of the 2023 Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence executive order. The 2025 AI Action Plan directs the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to identify and repeal regulations perceived as limiting AI development—linking federal AI funding eligibility to state-level regulatory environments.
Currently, the OMB is tasked with evaluating whether to deny AI-related federal funds to states with what it calls “burdensome” regulations—although the term remains undefined. In addition, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will revise its AI Risk Management Framework to remove references to misinformation, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), and climate change.
Other measures under this pillar include federal procurement preferences for “objective” frontier AI models, expanded support for open-weight development through the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR), and the use of regulatory sandboxes for AI testing in high-risk sectors.
Pillar II: Building AI Infrastructure
The second pillar targets the physical backbone required for AI development. The plan proposes categorical exclusions under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and expanded applicability of FAST-41 (Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act) to fast-track permitting processes for AI-related infrastructure, including data centers and energy facilities.
Federal lands will be opened “for data center construction and the construction of power generation infrastructure,” while continued reliance on “critical power generation sources” and “extant backup power sources” marks a shift away from the prior administration’s phase-out of fossil-fuel-based systems.
Additional priorities include strengthening cybersecurity in supply chains, broadening the CHIPS program to incentivize semiconductor production, and creating secure, government-backed data centers for national security purposes.
Pillar III: Leading AI Diplomacy and Security
The third pillar positions AI at the heart of U.S. foreign policy. It outlines strategies for full-stack AI export packages via the Department of Commerce and the Economic Diplomacy Action Group, proposes stricter controls on advanced compute exports (with location-verification technologies to track end use in adversarial states), and seeks to eliminate loopholes in semiconductor sub-systems.
A major diplomatic goal is to coordinate with allies on shared export restrictions and to establish a global technology diplomacy strategy. The Center for AI Standards and Innovation, along with national security agencies, will assess risks tied to frontier models—including biosecurity, cyber threats, and foreign influence over critical infrastructure.
Key Omissions and Compliance Signals
Notably absent from the Plan is a definitive stance on copyright and intellectual property issues. Although the administration has taken pro-developer positions on copyright elsewhere, the Plan is silent on whether AI-generated works are eligible for copyright protection or if fair use permits training on copyrighted content. For now, such matters are left to the courts and the U.S. Copyright Office.
Still, the Plan introduces new compliance checkpoints. Creators and publishers should prepare for upcoming evidentiary standards—such as NIST’s proposed Guardians of Forensic Evidence—to authenticate AI-generated media in litigation contexts. Meanwhile, AI developers entering into government contracts may face licensing obligations aligned with neutrality and open-weight mandates.
Business Implications: Opportunity Meets Oversight
For cloud service providers and AI firms, the Plan offers both potential advantages and heightened oversight. Incentives such as procurement preferences for open-weight models, increased access to NAIRR, and targeted federal funding could unlock new markets. However, these come with compliance obligations, including export controls, location verification, and content authentication standards.
Entities receiving federal support—or aiming to—should prepare for regulatory reviews led by OMB and for future requests for information (RFIs) that could influence grant and procurement eligibility. Notably, companies licensing AI to the federal government will be expected to demonstrate that their systems are “objective and free from top-down ideological bias.” Although this standard is not mandated across the private sector, it is clearly positioned as a prerequisite for access to federal funding, contracts, and international export approvals.
Procurement guidelines are expected to require documentation of neutrality safeguards for foundational and open-weight models. Developers will need to build compliance mechanisms to show their systems are not designed to promote specific ideologies—a shift that could reshape model architecture, documentation practices, and partner expectations.
Conclusion
The 2025 AI Action Plan takes a hybrid approach: deregulatory in loosening constraints on preferred AI pathways, yet prescriptive in its efforts to centralize federal authority over funding, procurement, and trade. For AI stakeholders, the moment to act is now—by reassessing compliance risks, aligning internal governance structures, and preparing for a new federal incentive landscape.
In a rapidly shifting environment, the Plan is a foundational signal for legal, business, and policy teams alike—one likely to shape the regulatory climate, industry expectations, and competitive positioning for years to come. Our Maryland IP attorneys are here to help maneuver the rapidly shifting environment.