President Trump issued his administration’s “Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan in July. The White House announcement on artificial intelligence shows promise, but the effectiveness of the Trump plan will be moderated by the actions states, including Michigan, take in response to the rise of artificial intelligence.

The action plan calls for more than 90 new or revised policies. The announcement calls for expediting and modernizing permits for data centers and manufacturing facilities for semiconductors. It also calls for deregulation and initiatives to create new electricians and HVAC technicians, who are critical to AI data centers.

The Trump plan is radically different from the executive order issued by President Joe Biden in late 2023, which states that the 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 Trump plan rejects a government-directed approach.

It also stresses that cybersecurity, technological innovation, and infrastructure building are not opposing or wholly separate efforts but rather complementary objectives to be achieved in tandem.

The Trump administration recommends several significant policy changes. But its plan does not include any call for reforms at the state level. State governments are rushing to regulate artificial intelligence. More than 1,000 legislative proposals have been introduced or passed by state and local governments in 2025. Many analysts have called for a moratorium on new state and local regulations of artificial intelligence.

A moratorium almost made it into the recent federal budget package, which the president called the “Big Beautiful Bill.” The U.S. House of Representatives, in the budget reconciliation package it sent to the Senate, established a 10-year moratorium on enforcement of state laws that single out artificial intelligence for special rules. But the Senate voted to remove the moratorium.

Michigan lawmakers have been active in calling for new regulations on artificial intelligence. That puts Michigan companies in an awkward position, because AI applications are rarely confined to just one state. A company based in a state that regulates artificial intelligence less could find that other states are making the rules, in ways that may favor their own businesses.

The next step from the Trump administration will be its promised 2025 National AI R&D Strategic Plan, which should provide more detail. Congress is also considering reviving the state moratorium in future legislation.

Despite the lack of attention to state-level AI regulation, the AI Action Plan is an important step toward embracing artificial intelligence as a national priority. Much depends on how the plan is implemented.

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