A Conversation with OSTP Director Michael Kratsios

With allies and adversaries continuing to make leaps and bounds in artificial intelligence (AI) innovation, adoption, and legislation, the global race for AI leadership remains competitive. The Trump Administration’s recently released AI Action Plan lays out a roadmap intended to maintain and promote American technological dominance. On Thursday, July 24th, Director of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, Michael Kratsios, joined Meridian to unpack the White House’s AI strategy. In conversation with Meridian’s Kellee Wicker, Kratsios delved into key aspects of the plan and the administration’s emphasis on leveraging American innovation to lead at home and abroad, both economically and on AI governance.

Here Were the Top Takeaways From the Program:

1. American Technology as the Default

In the global race for 5G dominance, the US learned the importance in becoming the “default” technology. Huawei beat out American 5G technology and became more widely adopted in large parts of the world and even when presented with security concerns, many nations found it too cumbersome to replace the infrastructure. In the race for AI dominance, this administration aims to become the new default abroad. To make adopting American technology easier, the Department of Commerce will convene the tech community, promoting collaboration with the ultimate goal that private sector consortia will create convenient packages of the full American AI tech stack – from hardware to models to applications. These packages can then be exported with the support of the Development Finance Corporation and the Export-Import Bank.

2. The Role of International Standards Bodies

Key to exporting democratic values is ensuring that these values are represented at international governance bodies. This is particularly important to combat the influence of authoritarian regimes that are also trying to leverage these standards bodies. However, as AI’s impact grows, so do the number of international bodies and discussion fora looking to make their mark on global governance. The administration plans to build U.S. leadership in standards-setting by targeting high impact AI fora as opposed to attempting to attend a wider array of events.

3. Promoting Research

Advancing AI technology or harnessing it for pivotal scientific research is very resource intensive – from compute to data to models – and key inputs are increasingly expensive. Nevertheless, research is integral to maintaining an edge in capability and leading models, as well as advancing innovative capacity for scientific breakthroughs and new use cases. As such, this administration seeks to cultivate a robust research ecosystem by increasing research facilities and startups’ access to compute, incentivizing open-source models, and creating high quality and accessible data sets.

4. The Need for More Infrastructure

Underlying the entirety of the AI Action Plan is the need for more infrastructure, particularly to support energy production. Experts expect energy needs to skyrocket, and energy suppliers are already working to tackle rising demand. However, permitting timelines and other regulations associated with building new energy capacity makes this growth difficult. The Action Plan makes it clear: the administration wants to accelerate timelines for new infrastructure. To achieve the desired pace, the administration seeks to streamline regulations and codify exceptions around building infrastructure to make the process more expeditious.

5. Adoption, Adoption, Adoption

Success of this strategy relies heavily on adoption at home and abroad. For industries to benefit from AI tools, they must actually leverage them. As such, the Plan seeks to accelerate U.S. government adoption of AI through improved interagency coordination, a procurement toolbox, and other mechanisms to help agencies develop, purchase, and transfer tech solutions and talents. Similarly, the Plan looks to accelerate private sector use by boosting AI skill development as an objective for education and workforce training programs. Adoption is also rooted in trust. This administration seeks to build trust through improving communication, promoting more robust model evaluation, and prioritizing cybersecurity through vulnerability sharing. A business-like mindset also underscores the exporting of the full AI tech stack to promote adoption abroad.  The administration wants to present a compelling product – easy to implement solutions that can meet countries’ varied needs.