The top scientific priority for the Trump administration is artificial intelligence, according to an administration official.
As TIME named AI architects the “Person of the Year” and the Trump administration rolls out its “one rulebook” for AI, Energy Secretary Chris Wright clarified the priority status of artificial intelligence in the federal government. Wright told TIME that AI is the “No. 1 scientific priority of the Trump Administration.” As the Trump administration clears the path for advanced AI development, it addresses two major issues impacting the AI race: the need for rapid innovation and the anti-free speech agendas of AI programmers.
MRC Vice President for Free Speech Dan Schneider emphasized the double importance of the Trump administration’s approach of simultaneously supporting domestic innovation to outpace foreign rivals while also reigning in woke technology companies. “It is not just about beating a foreign adversary. It is also about beating domestic threats from the radicals in Silicon Valley,” he said.
Schneider warned, “China wants to dominate us on the battlefield. The loony left wants to control what every American thinks, to turn us into glassy-eyed cows. Trump is achieving the nearly impossible, fighting on both fronts, and simultaneously using the domestic adversary Google to align with the American people in our battle with the foreign one.”
Senior policy advisor Dean Ball, who helped write Trump’s AI Action Plan, told TIME that Chinese DeepSeek’s breakthrough development spurred the president to prioritize AI almost from day one. “It was a wake-up call that we needed. It set the tone for the nature of the competition that we have ahead of us, and the speed with which we have to move,” Ball asserted.
Indeed, in January, Trump removed Biden administration barriers to AI innovation. In July, the president promoted the export of America’s foundational AI technology and also laid out his goals for increasing AI infrastructure and combating wokeness. Trump also issued a new executive order on Dec. 11, ordering a task force to counter woke states’ anti-free speech AI laws. Trump additionally allowed some tariff exemptions for AI hardware, as TIME explained.
TIME tried to argue that “fossil fuels” powering AI data centers are harmful for the environment, but the Energy Secretary flipped the script.
Wright pointed out that the Trump administration is looking to clean and efficient nuclear power going forward. As he told the Idaho National Laboratory while promising four times the amount of nuclear power, “This is ground zero for the nuclear renaissance that the Trump administration is passionate to make happen...It’s been talked about for 20 years, but it's actually happening now.” The administration is investing in more nuclear power plants.
Wright confirmed to TIME that AI is a high priority for his fellow administration officials and President Trump himself. The Trump administration is in an AI race with communist China, our number one enemy, for innovation and technological advancement, as Wright’s fellow official and AI czar David Sacks emphasized on X.
Some critics have expressed concern about AI’s ideological bias, however. For instance, AI-powered news aggregators like Google News, MSN, AOL News and Yahoo! News all overwhelmingly promote leftist media, MRC found. On Sept. 11, under prompting from MRC, Meta AI first ignored and then downplayed the anniversary of the 2001 9/11 terrorist attacks.
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