“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 told the hundreds in attendance.
He said the nation is leading its closest competitor, China, “very substantially.”
The president noted that the communist regime is pouring resources into the race and benefits from a lack of regulations that limit innovation and expansion.
To sustain a competitive advantage, Trump vowed to facilitate the construction of data centers, manufacturing facilities, power plants, and transmission lines.
“My administration will use every tool at our disposal to ensure the United States can build and maintain the largest, most powerful, and advanced AI infrastructure anywhere on the planet,” Trump said.
Executive Orders
He then signed an executive order to accelerate the permitting process at the federal level for data center infrastructure projects by limiting regulations across agencies.
“If you regulate them too much, you kill the source of American genius and technological power,” Trump said.
According to the order, these technologies are “essential to national security, economic prosperity, and scientific leadership” and will bolster technological innovation and manufacturing projects.
The directive also revoked Executive Order 14141—which regulated AI development—signed by President Joe Biden during his last week in office.
“I encourage all American companies to join us in rejecting poisonous Marxism in our technology,” Trump said.
Agencies are ordered not to contract with any company that trains its AI with ideologies that include transgenderism, critical race theory, unconscious bias, and others. The order also declares that the federal government “has the obligation not to procure models that sacrifice truthfulness and accuracy to ideological agendas.”
The order stated that the use of DEI in AI leads to deliberate manipulation and distortion of historical records and information.
“DEI displaces the commitment to truth in favor of preferred outcomes and, as recent history illustrates, poses an existential threat to reliable AI,” the order reads.
The director of the Office of Management and Budget is directed to consult with the administrator for federal procurement policy, the administrator of general services, and the director of the Office of Science and Technology within 120 days to issue guidance to respective government agencies.
Agency heads are ordered to only procure AI models that are ideologically neutral and trained to be truth-seeking, prioritizing objectivity and historical and scientific accuracy.
The last order Trump signed is meant to boost exports and promote the American AI industry.
“The second pillar of our action plan for AI dominance is to get the entire world running on the backbone of American technology,” Trump said.
Several cabinet members who have long championed AI dominance, including David Sacks, the president’s AI czar, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, were in attendance, among others.
