AI Congressional Mandates, Executive Orders and Actions

NIST’s AI efforts are driven by congressional mandates, Presidential Executive Orders, policies, and actions, the needs expressed by U.S. industry, the global research community, other federal agencies, and the broader AI community – as well as NIST’s experience and its own capabilities.

Congressional Mandates 

The “Chips and Science Act” of 2022 (P.L. 117-167) (8/9/2022). Directs NIST to:

• continue to support the development of AI and data science and to carry out the activities of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act of 2020;
• carry out research and testing to improve the effectiveness of AI-enabled cybersecurity; and
• establish testbeds to support the development of robust and trustworthy AI and machine learning systems.

In addition, the Act reinforces the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act's call for NIST to: 

• expand its AI capabilities, including scientific staff and research infrastructure;
• support measurement research and development for advanced computer chips and hardware designed for AI systems;
• support the development of technical standards and guidelines that promote safe and trustworthy AI systems;
• create a framework for managing risks associated with AI systems; and
• develop and publish cybersecurity tools, encryption methods, and best practices for AI and data science. 

National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act of 2020 (P.L. 116-283), (1/1/2021). Directs NIST to:

• advance collaborative frameworks, standards, guidelines, and associated methods and techniques for AI;

• develop a risk-mitigation framework for deploying AI systems;

• support development of technical standards and guidelines that promote trustworthy AI systems;

• support development of technical standards and guidelines to test for bias in AI training data and applications; and

• conduct stakeholder outreach.

The Act also established:

• The National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee (NAIAC), tasked with advising the President and the White House National AI Initiative Office. NIST provides administrative support to NAIAC.

• A Task Force charged with investigating the feasibility and advisability of establishing and sustaining a National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) and to propose a roadmap detailing how such a resource should be established and sustained. This Task Force has included a member from NIST.

Executive Orders and Actions Directly Related to NIST’s AI  Work

NIST’s AI efforts are driven by congressional mandates, Presidential Executive Orders and policies, the needs expressed by U.S. industry, the global research community, other federal agencies, and the broader AI community – as well as NIST’s own expertise.

• Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan (7/23/2025)

  NIST is named in a large number of recommended policy actions. They include work to ensure that frontier AI protects free speech and American values; encourage open-source and open-weight AI; enable AI adoption; invest in AI-enabled science; invest in AI interpretability, control, and robustness breakthroughs; build an AI evaluations ecosystem; protect commercial and government AI innovations; combat synthetic media in the legal system; build high-security data centers for military and intelligence community usage; bolster critical infrastructure cybersecurity; promote secure-by-design AI technologies and applications; promote mature federal capacity for AI incident response; invest in biosecurity; and ensure that the U.S. government is at the forefront of evaluating national security risks in frontier models.  

• Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence  (1/23/2025)

  Calls for an action plan to sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance in order to promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security. Also directs a review of any actions taken pursuant to Executive Order 14110 that are or may be inconsistent with, or present obstacles to, the new order's policy. An accompanying fact sheet cites the NIST-produced plan to strengthen engagement in AI technical standards and the plan for national AI research institutes (NAIRR), where a NIST official was part of the NAIRR task force.

• Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (10/30/2023)  

  [Rescinded 1/20/2025] Directs NIST to develop guidelines and reports on Generative AI, secure software development, synthetic content, and global engagement in standards as well as ensure the availability of testing environments.

• Executive Order on Promoting the Use of Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence in the Federal Government (12/3/2020) 

  Establishes AI principles for federal agencies. NIST subsequently reflected those principles in the NIST AI Risk Management Framework called for by the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act of 2020 which became law on January 1, 2020.

• Executive Order on Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence (2/14/2019)

  Directs NIST to create a plan for federal engagement in the development of technical standards and related tools in support of reliable, robust, and trustworthy systems that use AI technologies.