By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Purpose. Artificial intelligence (AI) holds extraordinary potential for both promise and peril. Responsible AI use has the potential to help solve urgent challenges while making our world more prosperous, productive, innovative, and secure. At the same time, irresponsible use could exacerbate societal harms such as fraud, discrimination, bias, and disinformation; displace and disempower workers; stifle competition; and pose risks to national security. Harnessing AI for good and realizing its myriad benefits requires mitigating its substantial risks. This endeavor demands a society-wide effort that includes government, the private sector, academia, and civil society.
My Administration places the highest urgency on governing the development and use of AI safely and responsibly, and is therefore advancing a coordinated, Federal Government-wide approach to doing so. The rapid speed at which AI capabilities are advancing compels the United States to lead in this moment for the sake of our security, economy, and society.
In the end, AI reflects the principles of the people who build it, the people who use it, and the data upon which it is built. I firmly believe that the power of our ideals; the foundations of our society; and the creativity, diversity, and decency of our people are the reasons that America thrived in past eras of rapid change. They are the reasons we will succeed again in this moment. We are more than capable of harnessing AI for justice, security, and opportunity for all.
Sec. 2. Policy and Principles. It is the policy of my Administration to advance and govern the development and use of AI in accordance with eight guiding principles and priorities. When undertaking the actions set forth in this order, executive departments and agencies (agencies) shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, adhere to these principles, while, as feasible, taking into account the views of other agencies, industry, members of academia, civil society, labor unions, international allies and partners, and other relevant organizations:
(a) Artificial Intelligence must be safe and secure. Meeting this goal requires robust, reliable, repeatable, and standardized evaluations of AI systems, as well as policies, institutions, and, as appropriate, other mechanisms to test, understand, and mitigate risks from these systems before they are put to use. It also requires addressing AI systems' most pressing security risks — including with respect to biotechnology, cybersecurity, critical infrastructure, and other national security dangers — while navigating AI's opacity and complexity. Testing and evaluations, including post-deployment performance monitoring, will help ensure that AI systems function as intended, are resilient against misuse or dangerous modifications, are ethically developed and operated in a secure manner, and are compliant with applicable Federal laws and policies. Finally, my Administration will help develop effective labeling and content provenance mechanisms, so that Americans are able to determine when content is generated using AI and when it is not. These actions will provide a vital foundation for an approach that addresses AI's risks without unduly reducing its benefits.
(b) Promoting responsible innovation, competition, and collaboration will allow the United States to lead in AI and unlock the technology's potential to solve some of society's most difficult challenges. This effort requires investments in AI-related education, training, development, research, and capacity, while simultaneously tackling novel intellectual property (IP) questions and other problems to protect inventors and creators. Across the Federal Government, my Administration will support programs to provide Americans the skills they need for the age of AI and attract the world's AI talent to our shores — not just to study, but to stay — so that the companies and technologies of the future are made in America. The Federal Government will promote a fair, open, and competitive ecosystem and marketplace for AI and related technologies so that small developers and entrepreneurs can continue to drive innovation. Doing so requires stopping unlawful collusion and addressing risks from dominant firms' use of key assets such as semiconductors, computing power, cloud storage, and data to disadvantage competitors, and it requires supporting a marketplace that harnesses the benefits of AI to provide new opportunities for small businesses, workers, and entrepreneurs.
(c) The responsible development and use of AI require a commitment to supporting American workers. As AI creates new jobs and industries, all workers need a seat at the table, including through collective bargaining, to ensure that they benefit from these opportunities. My Administration will seek to adapt job training and education to support a diverse workforce and help provide access to opportunities that AI creates. In the workplace itself, AI should not be deployed in ways that undermine rights, worsen job quality, encourage undue worker surveillance, lessen market competition, introduce new health and safety risks, or cause harmful labor-force disruptions. The critical next steps in AI development should be built on the views of workers, labor unions, educators, and employers to support responsible uses of AI that improve workers' lives, positively augment human work, and help all people safely enjoy the gains and opportunities from technological innovation.
(d) Artificial Intelligence policies must be consistent with my Administration's dedication to advancing equity and civil rights. My Administration cannot — and will not — tolerate the use of AI to disadvantage those who are already too often denied equal opportunity and justice. From hiring to housing to healthcare, we have seen what happens when AI use deepens discrimination and bias, rather than improving quality of life. Artificial Intelligence systems deployed irresponsibly have reproduced and intensified existing inequities, caused new types of harmful discrimination, and exacerbated online and physical harms. My Administration will build on the important steps that have already been taken — such as issuing the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, the AI Risk Management Framework, and Executive Order 14091 of February 16, 2023 (Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government) — in seeking to ensure that AI complies with all Federal laws and to promote robust technical evaluations, careful oversight, engagement with affected communities, and rigorous regulation. It is necessary to hold those developing and deploying AI accountable to standards that protect against unlawful discrimination and abuse, including in the justice system and the Federal Government. Only then can Americans trust AI to advance civil rights, civil liberties, equity, and justice for all.
(e) The interests of Americans who increasingly use, interact with, or purchase AI and AI-enabled products in their daily lives must be protected. Use of new technologies, such as AI, does not excuse organizations from their legal obligations, and hard-won consumer protections are more important than ever in moments of technological change. The Federal Government will enforce existing consumer protection laws and principles and enact appropriate safeguards against fraud, unintended bias, discrimination, infringements on privacy, and other harms from AI. Such protections are especially important in critical fields like healthcare, financial services, education, housing, law, and transportation, where mistakes by or misuse of AI could harm patients, cost consumers or small businesses, or jeopardize safety or rights. At the same time, my Administration will promote responsible uses of AI that protect consumers, raise the quality of goods and services, lower their prices, or expand selection and availability.
(f) Americans' privacy and civil liberties must be protected as AI continues advancing. Artificial Intelligence is making it easier to extract, re-identify, link, infer, and act on sensitive information about people's identities, locations, habits, and desires. Artificial Intelligence's capabilities in these areas can increase the risk that personal data could be exploited and exposed. To combat this risk, the Federal Government will ensure that the collection, use, and retention of data is lawful, is secure, and mitigates privacy and confidentiality risks. Agencies shall use available policy and technical tools, including privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) where appropriate, to protect privacy and to combat the broader legal and societal risks — including the chilling of First Amendment rights — that result from the improper collection and use of people's data.
(g) It is important to manage the risks from the Federal Government's own use of AI and increase its internal capacity to regulate, govern, and support responsible use of AI to deliver better results for Americans. These efforts start with people, our Nation's greatest asset. My Administration will take steps to attract, retain, and develop public service-oriented AI professionals, including from underserved communities, across disciplines — including technology, policy, managerial, procurement, regulatory, ethical, governance, and legal fields — and ease AI professionals' path into the Federal Government to help harness and govern AI. The Federal Government will work to ensure that all members of its workforce receive adequate training to understand the benefits, risks, and limitations of AI for their job functions, and to modernize Federal Government information technology infrastructure, remove bureaucratic obstacles, and ensure that safe and rights-respecting AI is adopted, deployed, and used.
(h) The Federal Government should lead the way to global societal, economic, and technological progress, as the United States has in previous eras of disruptive innovation and change. This leadership is not measured solely by the technological advancements our country makes. Effective leadership also means pioneering those systems and safeguards needed to deploy technology responsibly — and building and promoting those safeguards with the rest of the world. My Administration will engage with international allies and partners in developing a framework to manage AI's risks, unlock AI's potential for good, and promote common approaches to shared challenges. The Federal Government will seek to promote responsible AI safety and security principles and actions with other nations, including our competitors, while leading key global conversations and collaborations to ensure that AI benefits the whole world, rather than exacerbating inequities, threatening human rights, and causing other harms.
Sec. 3. Definitions. For purposes of this order:
(a) The term "agency" means each agency described in 44 U.S.C. 3502(1), except for the independent regulatory agencies described in 44 U.S.C. 3502(5).
(b) The term "artificial intelligence" or "AI" has the meaning set forth in 15 U.S.C. 9401(3): a machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations, or decisions influencing real or virtual environments. Artificial intelligence systems use machine- and human-based inputs to perceive real and virtual environments; abstract such perceptions into models through analysis in an automated manner; and use model inference to formulate options for information or action.
(c) The term "AI model" means a component of an information system that implements AI technology and uses computational, statistical, or machine-learning techniques to produce outputs from a given set of inputs.
(d) The term "AI red-teaming" means a structured testing effort to find flaws and vulnerabilities in an AI system, often in a controlled environment and in collaboration with developers of AI. Artificial Intelligence red-teaming is most often performed by dedicated "red teams" that adopt adversarial methods to identify flaws and vulnerabilities, such as harmful or discriminatory outputs from an AI system, unforeseen or undesirable system behaviors, limitations, or potential risks associated with the misuse of the system.
(e) The term "AI system" means any data system, software, hardware, application, tool, or utility that operates in whole or in part using AI.
(f) The term "commercially available information" means any information or data about an individual or group of individuals, including an individual's or group of individuals' device or location, that is made available or obtainable and sold, leased, or licensed to the general public or to governmental or non-governmental entities.
(g) The term "crime forecasting" means the use of analytical techniques to attempt to predict future crimes or crime-related information. It can include machine-generated predictions that use algorithms to analyze large volumes of data, as well as other forecasts that are generated without machines and based on statistics, such as historical crime statistics.
(h) The term "critical and emerging technologies" means those technologies listed in the February 2022 Critical and Emerging Technologies List Update issued by the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), as amended by subsequent updates to the list issued by the NSTC.
(i) The term "critical infrastructure" has the meaning set forth in section 1016(e) of the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, 42 U.S.C. 5195c(e).
(j) The term "differential-privacy guarantee" means protections that allow information about a group to be shared while provably limiting the improper access, use, or disclosure of personal information about particular entities.
(k) The term "dual-use foundation model" means an AI model that is trained on broad data; generally uses self-supervision; contains at least tens of billions of parameters; is applicable across a wide range of contexts; and that exhibits, or could be easily modified to exhibit, high levels of performance at tasks that pose a serious risk to security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters, such as by:
(i) substantially lowering the barrier of entry for non-experts to design, synthesize, acquire, or use chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) weapons;
(ii) enabling powerful offensive cyber operations through automated vulnerability discovery and exploitation against a wide range of potential targets of cyber attacks; or
(iii) permitting the evasion of human control or oversight through means of deception or obfuscation.
Models meet this definition even if they are provided to end users with technical safeguards that attempt to prevent users from taking advantage of the relevant unsafe capabilities.
(l) The term "Federal law enforcement agency" has the meaning set forth in section 21(a) of Executive Order 14074 of May 25, 2022 (Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and Criminal Justice Practices To Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety).
(m) The term "floating-point operation" means any mathematical operation or assignment involving floating-point numbers, which are a subset of the real numbers typically represented on computers by an integer of fixed precision scaled by an integer exponent of a fixed base.
(n) The term "foreign person" has the meaning set forth in section 5(c) of Executive Order 13984 of January 19, 2021 (Taking Additional Steps To Address the National Emergency With Respect to Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities).
(o) The terms "foreign reseller" and "foreign reseller of United States Infrastructure as a Service Products" mean a foreign person who has established an Infrastructure as a Service Account to provide Infrastructure as a Service Products subsequently, in whole or in part, to a third party.
(p) The term "generative AI" means the class of AI models that emulate the structure and characteristics of input data in order to generate derived synthetic content. This can include images, videos, audio, text, and other digital content.
(q) The terms "Infrastructure as a Service Product," "United States Infrastructure as a Service Product," "United States Infrastructure as a Service Provider," and "Infrastructure as a Service Account" each have the respective meanings given to those terms in section 5 of Executive Order 13984.
(r) The term "integer operation" means any mathematical operation or assignment involving only integers, or whole numbers expressed without a decimal point.
(s) The term "Intelligence Community" has the meaning given to that term in section 3.5(h) of Executive Order 12333 of December 4, 1981 (United States Intelligence Activities), as amended.
(t) The term "machine learning" means a set of techniques that can be used to train AI algorithms to improve performance at a task based on data.
(u) The term "model weight" means a numerical parameter within an AI model that helps determine the model's outputs in response to inputs.
(v) The term "national security system" has the meaning set forth in 44 U.S.C. 3552(b)(6).
(w) The term "omics" means biomolecules, including nucleic acids, proteins, and metabolites, that make up a cell or cellular system.
(x) The term "Open RAN" means the Open Radio Access Network approach to telecommunications-network standardization adopted by the O-RAN Alliance, Third Generation Partnership Project, or any similar set of published open standards for multi-vendor network equipment interoperability.
(y) The term "personally identifiable information" has the meaning set forth in Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular No. A-130.
(z) The term "privacy-enhancing technology" means any software or hardware solution, technical process, technique, or other technological means of mitigating privacy risks arising from data processing, including by enhancing predictability, manageability, disassociability, storage, security, and confidentiality. These technological means may include secure multiparty computation, homomorphic encryption, zero-knowledge proofs, federated learning, secure enclaves, differential privacy, and synthetic-data-generation tools. This is also sometimes referred to as "privacy-preserving technology."
(aa) The term "privacy impact assessment" has the meaning set forth in OMB Circular No. A-130.
(bb) The term "Sector Risk Management Agency" has the meaning set forth in 6 U.S.C. 650(23).
(cc) The term "self-healing network" means a telecommunications network that automatically diagnoses and addresses network issues to permit self-restoration.
(dd) The term "synthetic biology" means a field of science that involves redesigning organisms, or the biomolecules of organisms, at the genetic level to give them new characteristics. Synthetic nucleic acids are a type of biomolecule redesigned through synthetic-biology methods.
(ee) The term "synthetic content" means information, such as images, videos, audio clips, and text, that has been significantly modified or generated by algorithms, including by AI.
(ff) The term "testbed" means a facility or mechanism equipped for conducting rigorous, transparent, and replicable testing of tools and technologies, including AI and PETs, to help evaluate the functionality, usability, and performance of those tools or technologies.
(gg) The term "watermarking" means the act of embedding information, which is typically difficult to remove, into outputs created by AI — including into outputs such as photos, videos, audio clips, or text — for the purposes of verifying the authenticity of the output or the identity or characteristics of its provenance, modifications, or conveyance.
Sec. 4. Ensuring the Safety and Security of AI Technology.
4.1. Developing Guidelines, Standards, and Best Practices for AI Safety and Security. (a) Within 270 days of the date of this order, to help ensure the development of safe, secure, and trustworthy AI systems, the Secretary of Commerce, acting through the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in coordination with the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the heads of other relevant agencies as the Secretary of Commerce may deem appropriate, shall:
(i) Establish guidelines and best practices, with the aim of promoting consensus industry standards, for developing and deploying safe, secure, and trustworthy AI systems, including:
(A) developing a companion resource to the AI Risk Management Framework, NIST AI 100-1, for generative AI;
(B) developing a companion resource to the Secure Software Development Framework to incorporate secure development practices for generative AI and for dual-use foundation models; and
(C) launching an initiative to create guidance and benchmarks for evaluating and auditing AI capabilities, with a focus on capabilities through which AI could cause harm, such as in the areas of cybersecurity and biosecurity.
(ii) Establish appropriate guidelines (except for AI used as a component of a national security system), including appropriate procedures and processes, to enable developers of AI, especially of dual-use foundation models, to conduct AI red-teaming tests to enable deployment of safe, secure, and trustworthy systems. These efforts shall include:
(A) coordinating or developing guidelines related to assessing and managing the safety, security, and trustworthiness of dual-use foundation models; and
(B) in coordination with the Secretary of Energy and the Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), developing and helping to ensure the availability of testing environments, such as testbeds, to support the development of safe, secure, and trustworthy AI technologies, as well as to support the design, development, and deployment of associated PETs, consistent with section 9(b) of this order.
(b) Within 270 days of the date of this order, to understand and mitigate AI security risks, the Secretary of Energy, in coordination with the heads of other Sector Risk Management Agencies (SRMAs) as the Secretary of Energy may deem appropriate, shall develop and, to the extent permitted by law and available appropriations, implement a plan for developing the Department of Energy's AI model evaluation tools and AI testbeds. The Secretary shall undertake this work using existing solutions where possible, and shall develop these tools and AI testbeds to be capable of assessing near-term extrapolations of AI systems' capabilities. At a minimum, the Secretary shall develop tools to evaluate AI capabilities to generate outputs that may represent nuclear, nonproliferation, biological, chemical, critical infrastructure, and energy-security threats or hazards. The Secretary shall do this work solely for the purposes of guarding against these threats, and shall also develop model guardrails that reduce such risks. The Secretary shall, as appropriate, consult with private AI laboratories, academia, civil society, and third-party evaluators, and shall use existing solutions.
4.2. Ensuring Safe and Reliable AI. (a) Within 90 days of the date of this order, to ensure and verify the continuous availability of safe, reliable, and effective AI in accordance with the Defense Production Act, as amended, 50 U.S.C. 4501 et seq., including for the national defense and the protection of critical infrastructure, the Secretary of Commerce shall require:
(i) Companies developing or demonstrating an intent to develop potential dual-use foundation models to provide the Federal Government, on an ongoing basis, with information, reports, or records regarding the following:
(A) any ongoing or planned activities related to training, developing, or producing dual-use foundation models, including the physical and cybersecurity protections taken to assure the integrity of that training process against sophisticated threats;
(B) the ownership and possession of the model weights of any dual-use foundation models, and the physical and cybersecurity measures taken to protect those model weights; and
(C) the results of any developed dual-use foundation model's performance in relevant AI red-team testing based on guidance developed by NIST pursuant to subsection 4.1(a)(ii) of this section, and a description of any associated measures the company has taken to meet safety objectives, such as mitigations to improve performance on these red-team tests and strengthen overall model security. Prior to the development of guidance on red-team testing standards by NIST pursuant to subsection 4.1(a)(ii) of this section, this description shall include the results of any red-team testing that the company has conducted relating to lowering the barrier to entry for the development, acquisition, and use of biological weapons by non-state actors; the discovery of software vulnerabilities and development of associated exploits; the use of software or tools to influence real or virtual events; the possibility for self-replication or propagation; and associated measures to meet safety objectives; and
(ii) Companies, individuals, or other organizations or entities that acquire, develop, or possess a potential large-scale computing cluster to report any such acquisition, development, or possession, including the existence and location of these clusters and the amount of total computing power available in each cluster.
(b) The Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Energy, and the Director of National Intelligence, shall define, and thereafter update as needed on a regular basis, the set of technical conditions for models and computing clusters that would be subject to the reporting requirements of subsection 4.2(a) of this section. Until such technical conditions are defined, the Secretary shall require compliance with these reporting requirements for:
(i) any model that was trained using a quantity of computing power greater than 1026 integer or floating-point operations, or using primarily biological sequence data and using a quantity of computing power greater than 1023 integer or floating-point operations; and
(ii) any computing cluster that has a set of machines physically co-located in a single datacenter, transitively connected by data center networking of over 100 Gbit/s, and having a theoretical maximum computing capacity of 1020 integer or floating-point operations per second for training AI.
(c) Because I find that additional steps must be taken to deal with the national emergency related to significant malicious cyber-enabled activities declared in Executive Order 13694 of April 1, 2015 (Blocking the Property of Certain Persons Engaging in Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities), as amended by Executive Order 13757 of December 28, 2016 (Taking Additional Steps to Address the National Emergency With Respect to Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities), and further amended by Executive Order 13984, to address the use of United States Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Products by foreign malicious cyber actors, including to impose additional record-keeping obligations with respect to foreign transactions and to assist in the investigation of transactions involving foreign malicious cyber actors, I hereby direct the Secretary of Commerce, within 90 days of the date of this order, to:
(i) Propose regulations that require United States IaaS Providers to submit a report to the Secretary of Commerce when a foreign person transacts with that United States IaaS Provider to train a large AI model with potential capabilities that could be used in malicious cyber-enabled activity (a "training run"). Such reports shall include, at a minimum, the identity of the foreign person and the existence of any training run of an AI model meeting the criteria set forth in this section, or other criteria defined by the Secretary in regulations, as well as any additional information identified by the Secretary.
(ii) Include a requirement in the regulations proposed pursuant to subsection 4.2(c)(i) of this section that United States IaaS Providers prohibit any foreign reseller of their United States IaaS Product from providing those products unless such foreign reseller submits to the United States IaaS Provider a report, which the United States IaaS Provider must provide to the Secretary of Commerce, detailing each instance in which a foreign person transacts with the foreign reseller to use the United States IaaS Product to conduct a training run described in subsection 4.2(c)(i) of this section. Such reports shall include, at a minimum, the information specified in subsection 4.2(c)(i) of this section as well as any additional information identified by the Secretary.
(iii) Determine the set of technical conditions for a large AI model to have potential capabilities that could be used in malicious cyber-enabled activity, and revise that determination as necessary and appropriate. Until the Secretary makes such a determination, a model shall be considered to have potential capabilities that could be used in malicious cyber-enabled activity if it requires a quantity of computing power greater than 1026 integer or floating-point operations and is trained on a computing cluster that has a set of machines physically co-located in a single datacenter, transitively connected by data center networking of over 100 Gbit/s, and having a theoretical maximum compute capacity of 1020 integer or floating-point operations per second for training AI.
(d) Within 180 days of the date of this order, pursuant to the finding set forth in subsection 4.2(c) of this section, the Secretary of Commerce shall propose regulations that require United States IaaS Providers to ensure that foreign resellers of United States IaaS Products verify the identity of any foreign person that obtains an IaaS account (account) from the foreign reseller. These regulations shall, at a minimum:
(i) Set forth the minimum standards that a United States IaaS Provider must require of foreign resellers of its United States IaaS Products to verify the identity of a foreign person who opens an account or maintains an existing account with a foreign reseller, including:
(A) the types of documentation and procedures that foreign resellers of United States IaaS Products must require to verify the identity of any foreign person acting as a lessee or sub-lessee of these products or services;
(B) records that foreign resellers of United States IaaS Products must securely maintain regarding a foreign person that obtains an account, including information establishing:
(1) the identity of such foreign person, including name and address;
(2) the means and source of payment (including any associated financial institution and other identifiers such as credit card number, account number, customer identifier, transaction identifiers, or virtual currency wallet or wallet address identifier);
(3) the electronic mail address and telephonic contact information used to verify a foreign person's identity; and
(4) the Internet Protocol addresses used for access or administration and the date and time of each such access or administrative action related to ongoing verification of such foreign person's ownership of such an account; and
(C) methods that foreign resellers of United States IaaS Products must implement to limit all third-party access to the information described in this subsection, except insofar as such access is otherwise consistent with this order and allowed under applicable law;
(ii) Take into consideration the types of accounts maintained by foreign resellers of United States IaaS Products, methods of opening an account, and types of identifying information available to accomplish the objectives of identifying foreign malicious cyber actors using any such products and avoiding the imposition of an undue burden on such resellers; and
(iii) Provide that the Secretary of Commerce, in accordance with such standards and procedures as the Secretary may delineate and in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Director of National Intelligence, may exempt a United States IaaS Provider with respect to any specific foreign reseller of their United States IaaS Products, or with respect to any specific type of account or lessee, from the requirements of any regulation issued pursuant to this subsection. Such standards and procedures may include a finding by the Secretary that such foreign reseller, account, or lessee complies with security best practices to otherwise deter abuse of United States IaaS Products.
(e) The Secretary of Commerce is hereby authorized to take such actions, including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to the President by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, 50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq., as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of subsections 4.2(c) and (d) of this section. Such actions may include a requirement that United States IaaS Providers require foreign resellers of United States IaaS Products to provide United States IaaS Providers verifications relative to those subsections.
4.3. Managing AI in Critical Infrastructure and in Cybersecurity. (a) To ensure the protection of critical
infrastructure, the following actions shall be taken:
(i) Within 90 days of the date of this order, and at least annually thereafter, the head of each agency with relevant regulatory authority over critical infrastructure and the heads of relevant SRMAs, in coordination with the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency within the Department of Homeland Security for consideration of cross-sector risks, shall evaluate and provide to the Secretary of Homeland Security an assessment of potential risks related to the use of AI in critical infrastructure sectors involved, including ways in which deploying AI may make critical infrastructure systems more vulnerable to critical failures, physical attacks, and cyber attacks, and shall consider ways to mitigate these vulnerabilities. Independent regulatory agencies are encouraged, as they deem appropriate, to contribute to sector-specific risk assessments.
(ii) Within 150 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of the Treasury shall issue a public report on best practices for financial institutions to manage AI-specific cybersecurity risks.
(iii) Within 180 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in coordination with the Secretary of Commerce and with SRMAs and other regulators as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security, shall incorporate as appropriate the AI Risk Management Framework, NIST AI 100-1, as well as other appropriate security guidance, into relevant safety and security guidelines for use by critical infrastructure owners and operators.
(iv) Within 240 days of the completion of the guidelines described in subsection 4.3(a)(iii) of this section, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and the Director of OMB, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, shall coordinate work by the heads of agencies with authority over critical infrastructure to develop and take steps for the Federal Government to mandate such guidelines, or appropriate portions thereof, through regulatory or other appropriate action. Independent regulatory agencies are encouraged, as they deem appropriate, to consider whether to mandate guidance through regulatory action in their areas of authority and responsibility.
(v) The Secretary of Homeland Security shall establish an Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board as an advisory committee pursuant to section 871 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-296). The Advisory Committee shall include AI experts from the private sector, academia, and government, as appropriate, and provide to the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Federal Government's critical infrastructure community advice, information, or recommendations for improving security, resilience, and incident response related to AI usage in critical infrastructure.
(b) To capitalize on AI's potential to improve United States cyber defenses:
(i) The Secretary of Defense shall carry out the actions described in subsections 4.3(b)(ii) and (iii) of this section for national security systems, and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall carry out these actions for non-national security systems. Each shall do so in consultation with the heads of other relevant agencies as the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security may deem appropriate.
(ii) As set forth in subsection 4.3(b)(i) of this section, within 180 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall, consistent with applicable law, each develop plans for, conduct, and complete an operational pilot project to identify, develop, test, evaluate, and deploy AI capabilities, such as large-language models, to aid in the discovery and remediation of vulnerabilities in critical United States Government software, systems, and networks.
(iii) As set forth in subsection 4.3(b)(i) of this section, within 270 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall each provide a report to the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs on the results of actions taken pursuant to the plans and operational pilot projects required by subsection 4.3(b)(ii) of this section, including a description of any vulnerabilities found and fixed through the development and deployment of AI capabilities and any lessons learned on how to identify, develop, test, evaluate, and deploy AI capabilities effectively for cyber defense.
4.4. Reducing Risks at the Intersection of AI and CBRN Threats. (a) To better understand and mitigate the risk of AI being misused to assist in the development or use of CBRN threats — with a particular focus on biological weapons — the following actions shall be taken:
(i) Within 180 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of Energy and the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), shall evaluate the potential for AI to be misused to enable the development or production of CBRN threats, while also considering the benefits and application of AI to counter these threats, including, as appropriate, the results of work conducted under section 8(b) of this order. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall:
(A) consult with experts in AI and CBRN issues from the Department of Energy, private AI laboratories, academia, and third-party model evaluators, as appropriate, to evaluate AI model capabilities to present CBRN threats — for the sole purpose of guarding against those threats — as well as options for minimizing the risks of AI model misuse to generate or exacerbate those threats; and
(B) submit a report to the President that describes the progress of these efforts, including an assessment of the types of AI models that may present CBRN risks to the United States, and that makes recommendations for regulating or overseeing the training, deployment, publication, or use of these models, including requirements for safety evaluations and guardrails for mitigating potential threats to national security.
(ii) Within 120 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and the Director of OSTP, shall enter into a contract with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to conduct — and submit to the Secretary of Defense, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Director of the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, the Director of OSTP, and the Chair of the Chief Data Officer Council — a study that:
(A) assesses the ways in which AI can increase biosecurity risks, including risks from generative AI models trained on biological data, and makes recommendations on how to mitigate these risks;
(B) considers the national security implications of the use of data and datasets, especially those associated with pathogens and omics studies, that the United States Government hosts, generates, funds the creation of, or otherwise owns, for the training of generative AI models, and makes recommendations on how to mitigate the risks related to the use of these data and datasets;
(C) assesses the ways in which AI applied to biology can be used to reduce biosecurity risks, including recommendations on opportunities to coordinate data and high-performance computing resources; and
(D) considers additional concerns and opportunities at the intersection of AI and synthetic biology that the Secretary of Defense deems appropriate.
(b) To reduce the risk of misuse of synthetic nucleic acids, which could be substantially increased by AI's capabilities in this area, and improve biosecurity measures for the nucleic acid synthesis industry, the following actions shall be taken:
(i) Within 180 days of the date of this order, the Director of OSTP, in consultation with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Director of National Intelligence, and the heads of other relevant agencies as the Director of OSTP may deem appropriate, shall establish a framework, incorporating, as appropriate, existing United States Government guidance, to encourage providers of synthetic nucleic acid sequences to implement comprehensive, scalable, and verifiable synthetic nucleic acid procurement screening mechanisms, including standards and recommended incentives. As part of this framework, the Director of OSTP shall:
(A) establish criteria and mechanisms for ongoing identification of biological sequences that could be used in a manner that would pose a risk to the national security of the United States; and
(B) determine standardized methodologies and tools for conducting and verifying the performance of sequence synthesis procurement screening, including customer screening approaches to support due diligence with respect to managing security risks posed by purchasers of biological sequences identified in subsection 4.4(b)(i)(A) of this section, and processes for the reporting of concerning activity to enforcement entities.
(ii) Within 180 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Commerce, acting through the Director of NIST, in coordination with the Director of OSTP, and in consultation with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of HHS, and the heads of other relevant agencies as the Secretary of Commerce may deem appropriate, shall initiate an effort to engage with industry and relevant stakeholders, informed by the framework developed under subsection 4.4(b)(i) of this section, to develop and refine for possible use by synthetic nucleic acid sequence providers:
(A) specifications for effective nucleic acid synthesis procurement screening;
(B) best practices, including security and access controls, for managing sequence-of-concern databases to support such screening;
(C) technical implementation guides for effective screening; and
(D) conformity-assessment best practices and mechanisms.
(iii) Within 180 days of the establishment of the framework pursuant to subsection 4.4(b)(i) of this section, all agencies that fund life-sciences research shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, establish that, as a requirement of funding, synthetic nucleic acid procurement is conducted through providers or manufacturers that adhere to the framework, such as through an attestation from the provider or manufacturer. The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and the Director of OSTP shall coordinate the process of reviewing such funding requirements to facilitate consistency in implementation of the framework across funding agencies.
(iv) In order to facilitate effective implementation of the measures described in subsections 4.4(b)(i)-(iii) of this section, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the heads of other relevant agencies as the Secretary of Homeland Security may deem appropriate, shall:
(A) within 180 days of the establishment of the framework pursuant to subsection 4.4(b)(i) of this section, develop a framework to conduct structured evaluation and stress testing of nucleic acid synthesis procurement screening, including the systems developed in accordance with subsections 4.4(b)(i)-(ii) of this section and implemented by providers of synthetic nucleic acid sequences; and
(B) following development of the framework pursuant to subsection 4.4(b)(iv)(A) of this section, submit an annual report to the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Director of the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, and the Director of OSTP on any results of the activities conducted pursuant to subsection 4.4(b)(iv)(A) of this section, including recommendations, if any, on how to strengthen nucleic acid synthesis procurement screening, including customer screening systems.
4.5. Reducing the Risks Posed by Synthetic Content.
To foster capabilities for identifying and labeling synthetic content produced by AI systems, and to establish the authenticity and provenance of digital content, both synthetic and not synthetic, produced by the Federal Government or on its behalf:
(a) Within 240 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with the heads of other relevant agencies as the Secretary of Commerce may deem appropriate, shall submit a report to the Director of OMB and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs identifying the existing standards, tools, methods, and practices, as well as the potential development of further science-backed standards and techniques, for:
(i) authenticating content and tracking its provenance;
(ii) labeling synthetic content, such as using watermarking;
(iii) detecting synthetic content;
(iv) preventing generative AI from producing child sexual abuse material or producing non-consensual intimate imagery of real individuals (to include intimate digital depictions of the body or body parts of an identifiable individual);
(v) testing software used for the above purposes; and
(vi) auditing and maintaining synthetic content.
(b) Within 180 days of submitting the report required under subsection 4.5(a) of this section, and updated periodically thereafter, the Secretary of Commerce, in coordination with the Director of OMB, shall develop guidance regarding the existing tools and practices for digital content authentication and synthetic content detection measures. The guidance shall include measures for the purposes listed in subsection 4.5(a) of this section.
(c) Within 180 days of the development of the guidance required under subsection 4.5(b) of this section, and updated periodically thereafter, the Director of OMB, in consultation with the Secretary of State; the Secretary of Defense; the Attorney General; the Secretary of Commerce, acting through the Director of NIST; the Secretary of Homeland Security; the Director of National Intelligence; and the heads of other agencies that the Director of OMB deems appropriate, shall — for the purpose of strengthening public confidence in the integrity of official United States Government digital content — issue guidance to agencies for labeling and authenticating such content that they produce or publish.
(d) The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, consider amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation to take into account the guidance established under subsection 4.5 of this section.
4.6. Soliciting Input on Dual-Use Foundation Models with Widely Available Model Weights. When the weights for a dual-use foundation model are widely available — such as when they are publicly posted on the Internet — there can be substantial benefits to innovation, but also substantial security risks, such as the removal of safeguards within the model. To address the risks and potential benefits of dual-use foundation models with widely available weights, within 270 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Commerce, acting through the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information, and in consultation with the Secretary of State, shall:
(a) solicit input from the private sector, academia, civil society, and other stakeholders through a public consultation process on potential risks, benefits, other implications, and appropriate policy and regulatory approaches related to dual-use foundation models for which the model weights are widely available, including:
(i) risks associated with actors fine-tuning dual-use foundation models for which the model weights are widely available or removing those models' safeguards;
(ii) benefits to AI innovation and research, including research into AI safety and risk management, of dual-use foundation models for which the model weights are widely available; and
(iii) potential voluntary, regulatory, and international mechanisms to manage the risks and maximize the benefits of dual-use foundation models for which the model weights are widely available; and
(b) based on input from the process described in subsection 4.6(a) of this section, and in consultation with the heads of other relevant agencies as the Secretary of Commerce deems appropriate, submit a report to the President on the potential benefits, risks, and implications of dual-use foundation models for which the model weights are widely available, as well as policy and regulatory recommendations pertaining to those models.
4.7. Promoting Safe Release and Preventing the Malicious Use of Federal Data for AI Training.To improve public data access and manage security risks, and consistent with the objectives of the Open, Public, Electronic, and Necessary Government Data Act (title II of Public Law 115-435) to expand public access to Federal data assets in a machine-readable format while also taking into account security considerations, including the risk that information in an individual data asset in isolation does not pose a security risk but, when combined with other available information, may pose such a risk:
(a) within 270 days of the date of this order, the Chief Data Officer Council, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Director of National Intelligence, shall develop initial guidelines for performing security reviews, including reviews to identify and manage the potential security risks of releasing Federal data that could aid in the development of CBRN weapons as well as the development of autonomous offensive cyber capabilities, while also providing public access to Federal Government data in line with the goals stated in the Open, Public, Electronic, and Necessary Government Data Act (title II of Public Law 115-435); and
(b) within 180 days of the development of the initial guidelines required by subsection 4.7(a) of this section, agencies shall conduct a security review of all data assets in the comprehensive data inventory required under 44 U.S.C. 3511(a)(1) and (2)(B) and shall take steps, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to address the highest-priority potential security risks that releasing that data could raise with respect to CBRN weapons, such as the ways in which that data could be used to train AI systems.
4.8. Directing the Development of a National Security Memorandum. To develop a coordinated executive branch approach to managing AI's security risks, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and the Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy shall oversee an interagency process with the purpose of, within 270 days of the date of this order, developing and submitting a proposed National Security Memorandum on AI to the President. The memorandum shall address the governance of AI used as a component of a national security system or for military and intelligence purposes. The memorandum shall take into account current efforts to govern the development and use of AI for national security systems. The memorandum shall outline actions for the Department of Defense, the Department of State, other relevant agencies, and the Intelligence Community to address the national security risks and potential benefits posed by AI. In particular, the memorandum shall:
(a) provide guidance to the Department of Defense, other relevant agencies, and the Intelligence Community on the continued adoption of AI capabilities to advance the United States national security mission, including through directing specific AI assurance and risk-management practices for national security uses of AI that may affect the rights or safety of United States persons and, in appropriate contexts, non-United States persons; and
(b) direct continued actions, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to address the potential use of AI systems by adversaries and other foreign actors in ways that threaten the capabilities or objectives of the Department of Defense or the Intelligence Community, or that otherwise pose risks to the security of the United States or its allies and partners.
Sec. 5. Promoting Innovation and Competition.
5.1. Attracting AI Talent to the United States. (a) Within 90 days of the date of this order, to attract and retain talent in AI and other critical and emerging technologies in the United States economy, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall take appropriate steps to:
(i) streamline processing times of visa petitions and applications, including by ensuring timely availability of visa appointments, for noncitizens who seek to travel to the United States to work on, study, or conduct research in AI or other critical and emerging technologies; and
(ii) facilitate continued availability of visa appointments in sufficient volume for applicants with expertise in AI or other critical and emerging technologies.
(b) Within 120 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of State shall:
(i) consider initiating a rulemaking to establish new criteria to designate countries and skills on the Department of State's Exchange Visitor Skills List as it relates to the 2-year foreign residence requirement for certain J-1 nonimmigrants, including those skills that are critical to the United States;
(ii) consider publishing updates to the 2009 Revised Exchange Visitor Skills List (74 FR 20108); and
(iii) consider implementing a domestic visa renewal program under 22 C.F.R. 41.111(b) to facilitate the ability of qualified applicants, including highly skilled talent in AI and critical and emerging technologies, to continue their work in the United States without unnecessary interruption.
(c) Within 180 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of State shall:
(i) consider initiating a rulemaking to expand the categories of nonimmigrants who qualify for the domestic visa renewal program covered under 22 C.F.R. 41.111(b) to include academic J-1 research scholars and F-1 students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); and
(ii) establish, to the extent permitted by law and available appropriations, a program to identify and attract top talent in AI and other critical and emerging technologies at universities, research institutions, and the private sector overseas, and to establish and increase connections with that talent to educate them on opportunities and resources for research and employment in the United States, including overseas educational components to inform top STEM talent of nonimmigrant and immigrant visa options and potential expedited adjudication of their visa petitions and applications.
(d) Within 180 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall:
