This is part of an ongoing series of Covington blogs on the AI policies, executive orders, and other actions of the Trump Administration. This blog describes AI actions taken by the Trump Administration in July 2025, and prior articles in this series are available here.
White House Issues AI
Continue Reading July 2025 AI Developments Under the Trump AdministrationOn July 23, the White House released its AI Action Plan, outlining the key priorities of the Trump Administration’s AI policy agenda. In parallel, President Trump signed three AI executive orders directing the Executive Branch to implement the AI Action Plan’s policies on “Preventing Woke AI in
Continue Reading Trump Administration Issues AI Action Plan and Series of AI Executive OrdersThis is part of an ongoing series of Covington blogs on the AI policies, executive orders, and other actions of the Trump Administration. This blog describes AI actions taken by the Trump Administration in April 2025, and prior articles in this series are available here.
White House OMB Issues
Continue Reading April 2025 AI Developments Under the Trump AdministrationLast Monday, April 28, 2025, the House passed a bill titled Removing Our Unsecure Technologies to Ensure Reliability and Security (“ROUTERS”) Act (H.R. 866), which directs the Secretary of Commerce to study national security risks and cybersecurity vulnerabilities “posed by consumer routers, modems, and devices that combine a modem and router, that are designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied by persons owned by, controlled by, or subject to the influence of a covered country.” Similar to some other recent supply chain requirements imposed on federal contractors, the bill defines “covered countries” by reference to 10 U.S.C. 4872, which prohibits the acquisition of sensitive materials from North Korea, Russia, Iran, and China.Continue Reading ROUTERS Act on the Horizon: U.S. House Passes New Legislation
This is part of an ongoing series of Covington blogs on the AI policies, executive orders, and other actions of the Trump Administration. This blog describes AI actions taken by the Trump Administration in March 2025, and prior articles in this series are available here.
White House Receives Public
Continue Reading March 2025 AI Developments Under the Trump AdministrationOn April 3, the White House Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) released two memoranda with AI guidance and requirements for federal agencies, Memorandum M-25-21 on Accelerating Federal Use of AI through Innovation, Governance, and Public Trust (“OMB AI Use Memo“) and Memorandum M-25-22 on Driving Efficient Acquisition of Artificial
Continue Reading OMB Issues First Trump 2.0-Era Requirements for AI Use and Procurement by Federal AgenciesThis is part of an ongoing series of Covington blogs on the AI policies, executive orders, and other actions of the Trump Administration. The first blog summarized key actions taken in the first weeks of the Trump Administration, including the revocation of President Biden’s 2023 Executive Order 14110 on the “Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of AI” and the release of President Trump’s Executive Order 14179 on “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence” (“AI EO”). This blog describes actions on AI taken by the Trump Administration in February 2025.Continue Reading February 2025 AI Developments Under the Trump Administration
Last month, DeepSeek, an AI start-up based in China, grabbed headlines with claims that its latest large language AI model, DeepSeek-R1, could perform on par with more expensive and market-leading AI models despite allegedly requiring less than $6 million dollars’ worth of computing power from older and less-powerful chips. Although
Continue Reading U.S. Federal and State Governments Moving Quickly to Restrict Use of DeepSeekThis is the first in a new series of Covington blogs on the AI policies, executive orders, and other actions of the new Trump Administration. This blog describes key actions on AI taken by the Trump Administration in January 2025.
Outgoing President Biden Issues Executive Order and Data Center Guidance for AI Infrastructure
Before turning to the Trump Administration, we note one key AI development from the final weeks of the Biden Administration. On January 14, in one of his final acts in office, President Biden issued Executive Order 14141 on “Advancing United States Leadership in AI Infrastructure.” This EO, which remains in force, sets out requirements and deadlines for the construction and operation of “frontier AI infrastructure,” including data centers and clean energy facilities, by private-sector entities on federal land. Specifically, EO 14141 directs the Departments of Defense (“DOD”) and Energy (“DOE”) to lease federal lands for the construction and operation of AI data centers and clean energy facilities by the end of 2027, establishes solicitation and lease application processes for private sector applicants, directs federal agencies to take various steps to streamline and consolidate environmental permitting for AI infrastructure, and directs the DOE to take steps to update the U.S. electricity grid to meet the growing energy demands of AI.
On January 14, and in tandem with the release of EO 14141, the Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) issued Memorandum M-25-03 on “Implementation Guidance for the Federal Data Center Enhancement Act,” directing federal agencies to implement requirements related to the operation of data centers by federal agencies or government contractors. Specifically, the memorandum requires federal agencies to regularly monitor and optimize data center electrical consumption, including through the use of automated tools, and to arrange for assessments by certified specialists of data center energy and water usage and efficiency, among other requirements. Like EO 14141, Memorandum M-25-03 has yet to be rescinded by the Trump Administration.Continue Reading January 2025 AI Developments – Transitioning to the Trump Administration
This is the first blog in a series covering the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (“FY 2025 NDAA”). This first blog will cover: (1) NDAA sections affecting acquisition policy and contract administration that may be of greatest interest to government contractors; (2) initiatives that underscore Congress’s commitment to strengthening cybersecurity, both domestically and internationally; and (3) NDAA provisions that aim to accelerate the Department of Defense’s adoption of AI and Autonomous Systems and counter efforts by U.S. adversaries to subvert them.
Continue Reading President Biden signs the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025