President Donald Trump announced plans for a federal “AI Force” and a new artificial intelligence coordinator Saturday while pledging to protect rapid U.S. development of the technology as concerns grow over data-center costs and increasingly powerful AI systems.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
President Donald Trump announced Saturday that his administration will establish a new government “AI Force” and appoint an artificial intelligence coordinator, escalating his push to accelerate U.S. development of the technology while rejecting calls for broad new restrictions on the industry.
Trump provided few details about the planned organization, including which federal agency would house it, what formal authority it would possess or when it would begin operating. He said a new AI “Czar” would be announced in the near future.
The announcement followed an intensifying national debate over artificial intelligence, including the massive data centers required to support increasingly capable systems and warnings from some researchers and technology executives about safety risks associated with rapid development.
Trump portrayed efforts to restrain the industry as a threat to American technological leadership and said his administration would support its continued expansion.
“I, as President of the United States, will not stand by and let this happen,” Trump wrote after accusing critics of seeking the “decimation, or destruction, of AI.”
“We will not in any way hinder or stifle the Growth of this incredible Industry. Rather, we will cherish it, help it, and watch over it, as it grows!” he added.
Trump said the government would simultaneously use existing laws to pursue harmful conduct involving the technology.
“We will not in any way hinder or stifle the Growth of this incredible Industry,” Trump wrote. “Rather, we will cherish it, help it, and watch over it, as it grows! However, we will also be looking for BAD, and we can do that, very easily, with our already existing Criminal and Civil Justice System.”
Trump did not explain what types of activity the “AI Force” would investigate or what he meant by “BAD” actors.
The initiative would also bring another presidential AI adviser into the administration. Venture capitalist David Sacks previously served as Trump’s AI czar before leaving the government role in the spring and continuing as an outside adviser. Sacks has argued that developers should bear responsibility for the safety of their products while maintaining that extensive new federal regulations are unnecessary.
Trump compared the planned AI Force with the creation of the U.S. Space Force during his first term and indicated that he wants its leadership focused on advancing rather than restricting the technology.
His announcement builds on an administration policy that has treated artificial intelligence as both an economic opportunity and a national security priority.
The White House released an AI Action Plan in July 2025 built around accelerating innovation, expanding domestic AI infrastructure and strengthening American leadership internationally. Trump has since issued additional directives governing federal AI procurement, cybersecurity and the deployment of artificial intelligence within the national security apparatus.
Competition with China has become a central component of that strategy.
Trump and technology executives supporting rapid AI development argue that slowing American companies through extensive regulation could allow Chinese competitors to gain an advantage in technology with major economic and military implications. Washington and Beijing both regard artificial intelligence as strategically important.
Trump again made that argument as he defended the industry, saying the United States could not afford to lose the technological competition with China.
“The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!” Trump previously wrote while criticizing proposals to slow AI development.
His latest announcement comes days before Chinese President Xi Jinping is scheduled to meet Trump at the White House on Sept. 24. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is also scheduled to discuss artificial intelligence security, trade and other economic issues with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York.
At home, however, much of the public debate has centered not on international competition but on the infrastructure required to power AI.
Data centers can consume enormous quantities of electricity, and their rapid construction has prompted concern in communities about power bills, water consumption and demands on electrical grids.
A recent University of Massachusetts Amherst poll found 11% of Americans supported construction of an AI data center in their own community. A separate New York Times/Siena survey cited by Reuters found 61% of likely voters opposed construction of new AI data centers. Those surveys measure attitudes toward data-center construction rather than artificial intelligence as a whole.
Trump has strongly supported data-center development, describing the facilities as potentially the “oil of the next 20, 25 years.”
He has simultaneously backed efforts intended to prevent the expansion from increasing household electricity bills. The House voted 417-3 for the Ratepayer Protection Act, which would direct state utility regulators to consider whether large electricity users such as data centers should bear additional infrastructure costs associated with serving them. Trump said Friday he was discussing the legislation with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.
The White House has also promoted a Ratepayer Protection Pledge under which participating data-center developers, utilities and other entities commit to having large AI facilities finance the additional power generation and infrastructure they require rather than shifting those costs onto other ratepayers.
A separate and increasingly prominent debate concerns the capabilities of the AI systems operating inside those facilities.
Several leading artificial intelligence researchers and executives have recently called for stronger safeguards or a slower development pace after companies reported incidents involving increasingly autonomous AI agents.
Jacob Coxon, a former Anthropic researcher who resigned this month, said people developing advanced artificial intelligence “earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.” Other researchers have also publicly raised the possibility that increasingly autonomous systems could become difficult to monitor or control.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called this month for AI companies to slow development of their most powerful systems, while leaders associated with OpenAI, Google DeepMind and xAI have supported additional outside access or safety testing intended to evaluate increasingly capable models. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has opposed pausing development, while Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has argued that individual companies should determine their own pace and bear liability for harms caused by their models.
The warnings intensified after reports that AI agents developed by major laboratories had penetrated outside computer systems during testing or deployment, in some instances without immediate detection. The companies and researchers involved have cited those incidents as evidence for stronger technical safeguards and oversight.
Trump has repeatedly rejected what he considers excessive alarm surrounding those risks, previously calling the campaign against AI a “hoax” and arguing that existing civil and criminal laws can address harmful uses without broadly restricting development.
His Saturday announcement suggests that the planned AI Force will follow that approach: encouraging development while focusing government attention on identifiable misconduct rather than creating broad new restrictions on the technology.
Trump also used Saturday to question the name “artificial intelligence.”
“Many people think that the words ‘Artificial Intelligence’ are inaccurate, and very ineloquent,” Trump wrote.
He suggested three alternatives — “Superior Intelligence,” “Extreme Intelligence” and “Supreme Intelligence” — and invited people to choose among them.
“This is a Poll, and I would appreciate everybody voting! Which is the best name for this ever growing ‘Revolution?’” Trump wrote.
No formal government proposal to rename artificial intelligence accompanied the poll.
The more consequential development Saturday was Trump’s announcement that his administration intends to create an AI-specific federal organization and select a new coordinator to oversee its approach.
Exactly how that organization will operate remains unresolved. Trump did not identify its membership, budget, statutory authority or relationship with existing agencies already responsible for cybersecurity, technology policy, law enforcement and national security.
What he did make clear was the direction he wants federal policy to take: continued rapid expansion of American artificial intelligence while using existing government authority to address actors who misuse it.
“We will not in any way hinder or stifle the Growth of this incredible Industry,” Trump said. “Rather, we will cherish it, help it, and watch over it, as it grows!”
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