Trump's CTO pushes plan to take U.S. AI abroad

• The administration is expected to request industry proposals for its ambitious new AI exports program early this year.
• White House Office of Science and Technology Policy director Michael Kratsios will give an update on that program at the upcoming AI Impact Summit in India, per OSTP spokesperson Kristen Eichamer.

Driving the news: In some of his first public remarks since being confirmed as CTO, Ethan Klein said it was important to bring American AI technology "across the full stack to partners and allies across the globe."

• The U.S. led on nuclear development in the past, but ceded territory to others by restricting it too much, Klein said this week at the Ashby Workshops, an AI summit held by AI policy nonprofit Fathom.

What they're saying: "Eventually we saw kind of this overly burdensome, in my opinion, regulatory regime," Klein said. "We lost a lot of our leadership."

• "We saw that our partners across the globe went to China and Russia as producers and providers of that technology, and that's something I do have in mind when thinking about the development of AI."

Context: Some industry and lobbying sources told Axios last year that they were concerned with the lack of clarity and communication from the Trump administration around the planned American AI exports program.

• Companies across the AI ecosystem will be asked to offer proposals for the infrastructure, tools and models they want the government to designate as "priority" AI export packages.
• Companies that are accepted into the program would get federal loans, government investment and expedited licensing, per an executive order.

The Commerce Department accepted comments on its request for information on the program through mid-December of last year.

• OpenAI wrote that "for the U.S. to keep leading the world in AI innovation ... America must shape the tech stacks on which AI runs around the world" and suggested the U.S. work with partner countries on trusted supply chains.
• Anthropic's submission said close U.S. allies should be prioritized for exports. The company also wrote that "regulatory certainty" amid fragmented copyright, content regulation and data protection laws across the world was important.

• AMD urged Commerce to think of the "American AI Tech Stack" broadly, including data centers and edge providers. The chipmaker said open-source software and standards should be promoted, arguing such systems "future-proof" the AI stack.

Comparing the Trump administration's AI approach with the Biden administration's, Klein said the previous White House focused too heavily on safety and risk at the expense of adoption.

• "We really ought to refocus that instead on how we promote AI across different sectors, how do we work with industry to develop the standards Americans and folks around the world trust," he said.

What we're watching: The test will be whether the administration can translate its AI export vision into reality, rather than repeating the mistakes Klein says cost the U.S. its nuclear edge.

• Kratsios, per OSTP's Eichamer, will announce "progress to implement and expand the American AI Exports Program" and urge international partners to adopt the American AI stack at the India summit.