Trump Plans to Give A.I. Developers a Free Hand

President Trump said on Wednesday that he planned to speed the advance of artificial intelligence in the United States, opening the door for companies to develop the technology unfettered from oversight and safeguards, but added that A.I. needed to be free of “partisan bias.”

In a sweeping effort to put his stamp on the policies governing the fast-growing technology, Mr. Trump signed three executive orders and outlined an “A.I. Action Plan,” with measures to “remove red tape and onerous regulation” as well as to make it easier for companies to build infrastructure to power A.I.

One executive order barred the federal government from buying A.I. tools it considered ideologically biased. Another order would speed up the permitting process for major A.I. infrastructure projects, and a third focused on promoting the export of American A.I. products around the world.

“America is the country that started the A.I. race,” Mr. Trump said in a Wednesday evening speech in front of administration officials and tech executives, including Jensen Huang, the chief executive of the chipmaker Nvidia. “And as president of the United States, I’m here today to declare that America is going to win it.”

Mr. Trump’s plan signals that his administration has embraced A.I. and the tech industry’s arguments that it must be allowed to work with few guardrails for America to dominate a new era defined by the technology. It is a forceful repudiation of other governments, including the European Commission, that have approved regulations to govern the development of A.I.

But it also points to how the administration wants to shape the way A.I. tools present information. Conservatives have accused some tech companies of developing A.I. models with a baked-in liberal bias. Most A.I. models are already trained on copious amounts of data from across the web, which informs their responses, making any shift in focus difficult.

The changes outlined on Wednesday would benefit tech giants locked in a fierce contest to produce generative A.I. products and persuade consumers to weave the tools into their daily lives. Since OpenAI’s public release of ChatGPT in late 2022, tech companies have raced to produce their own versions of the technology, which can write humanlike texts and produce realistic images and videos.

Google, Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI and others are jockeying for access to computing power, typically from huge data centers filled with computers that can stress local resources. And the companies are facing increased competition from rivals like the Chinese start-up DeepSeek, which sent shock waves around the world this year after it created a powerful A.I. model with far less money than many thought possible.

The fight over resources in Silicon Valley has run alongside an equally charged debate in Washington over how to confront the societal transformations that A.I. could bring. Critics worry that if left unchecked, the technology could be a potent tool for scammers and extremists and lay waste to the economy as more jobs are automated. News outlets and artists have sued A.I. companies over claims that they illegally trained their technology using copyrighted works and articles.

(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The companies have denied wrongdoing.)

Mr. Trump previously warned of China’s potential to outpace American progress on the technology. He has said the federal government must support A.I. companies with tax incentives, more foreign investment and less focus on safety regulations that could hamper progress.

Former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. took one major action on artificial intelligence: a 2023 executive order that mandated safety and security standards for the development and use of A.I. across the federal government.

But hours after his inauguration in January, Mr. Trump rolled back that order. Days later, he signed another executive order, “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,” which called for an acceleration of A.I. development by U.S. tech companies and for versions of the technology that operated without ideological bias.

The order included a mandate for administration officials to come up with “an artificial intelligence action plan,” with policy guidelines to encourage the growth of the A.I. industry. The administration solicited comments from companies while it considered its plan.

OpenAI called for the administration to expand its list of countries eligible to import A.I. technologies from the United States, a list that has been limited by controls designed to stop China from gaining access to American technology. OpenAI and Google called for greater support in building A.I. data centers through tax breaks and fewer barriers for foreign investment.

Last week, Nvidia said the administration had approved the sale of one of its chips, offered specifically in China, that had previously been banned.

The plan released on Wednesday outlined a wide range of policy shifts, divided into moves that the administration said would speed up the development of A.I., make it easier to build and power data centers and promote the interests of American companies abroad.

The federal government should impose fewer environmental regulations on the construction of new data centers and support training programs for workers needed to staff the facilities, the plan said. One of the executive orders signed on Wednesday would establish a fast-tracked permitting process for data centers.

The plan also called for the government to collect information on regulations that could hinder A.I. innovation and “take appropriate action.” It also said it would withhold funding for A.I.-related projects if a state’s regulations made deploying that funding less effective.

The plan — and one of the executive orders — also calls for the government to give federal contracts to A.I. companies that “ensure that their systems are objective.” It said a government agency should revise guidelines for A.I.’s development to remove mentions of diversity, equity and inclusion; climate change; and misinformation.

“Once and for all, we are getting rid of woke,” Mr. Trump said in his speech. “The American people do not want woke Marxist lunacy in the A.I. models.”

The power of the federal government should be used to ensure that A.I. systems are built “with freedom of speech and expression in mind,” according to the plan. That echoes longstanding conservative claims that products produced by tech companies, including online platforms like Facebook and YouTube, favor left-leaning perspectives.

The government should encourage the export of American A.I. tools, the plan said, and called for federal agencies to help the industry sell packages of A.I. products abroad and work to counter China’s influence over the technology.

During his speech, Mr. Trump conducted a roll call of administration appointees and executives in attendance, including his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and the chief executive of the chipmaker AMD, Lisa Su. He thanked David Sacks, his A.I. and crypto czar, and Mr. Sacks’s co-hosts on “All-In,” a popular podcast in Silicon Valley that helped to put on Wednesday’s event. And Mr. Trump repeatedly praised Nvidia’s Mr. Huang, who was seated in front of the stage.

The president also touched on tariff negotiations, transgender athletes and the recent passage of his domestic policy bill.

“We’re going to make this industry absolutely the top because right now it’s a beautiful baby that’s born,” he said about A.I. “We have to grow that baby and let that baby thrive. We can’t stop it.”

When he was done speaking, Mr. Trump moved from the lectern to the side of the stage and a small desk, holding each executive order up after signing it. He handed the pen he used to sign one of the orders to Mr. Sacks. After wishing the crowd luck, Mr. Trump left the stage.

Ken Bensinger contributed reporting.