Scoop: AI Safety Institute to be renamed Center for AI Safety and Leadership

The Trump administration is looking to change the AI Safety Institute's name to the Center for AI Safety and Leadership in the coming days, per two sources familiar with the matter.

Why it matters: The U.S. standards-setting and AI testbed, housed inside the Commerce Department's National Institute for Standards and Technology, has been bracing for changes since President Trump took office.

• An early draft of a press release seen by one source tasks the agency with largely the same responsibilities it previously had, including engaging internationally. AISI was left out of a Paris AI summit earlier this year.
• More details of what the name shift means for the mission were not immediately clear.

Context: Under the Biden administration, the AI Safety Institute acted as a testing ground of sorts for new AI models, working with private sector companies on evaluation and standards, and was viewed as important by both Republicans and Democrats.

• After narrowly dodging major DOGE cuts earlier this year, as Axios previously reported, the government body has been changing its identity and purpose as Republican Cabinet secretaries, Trump and Congress figure out their AI strategy.
• A Commerce Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Between the lines: More than a name change, the resources the Trump administration invests in NIST will be a key indicator of how much of a priority AI safety and leadership is.

• The Trump administration has proposed slashing budgets across the federal government, including NIST.