WASHINGTON- A new White House task force will have 120 days to report on the risks and opportunities of artificial intelligence-and determine the federal government's responsibility-according to Jay Clayton, the director of national intelligence who effectively becomes the administration's AI czar.

"The president asked that a group be put together that was going to ensure exactly what he said," Clayton said, that "we stay the leaders in superintelligence, and that the interests of the American people are put first."

Clayton will chair the "Super Intelligence Force" which takes President Trump's preferred name for AI: super intelligence or SI.

"The risk of not being first is high," Clayton said. "Not being first increases the identified, and unidentified, risks, particularly from our adversaries. Being first will better enable us to address those risks on behalf of the American people," he added.

Formation of the group comes on the heels of a meeting Trump convened at the White House on Tuesday in which AI leaders, including OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Anthropic's Dario Amodei, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and the industry agreed to a series of principles including internal controls to monitor model development, external model reviews by third parties and notifications to the board of directors about those safety efforts, voluntary pledges that Trump hailed as the right approach.

"I will never stifle the growth of technology that will be bigger than the industrial revolution," Trump said on Tuesday.

The task force will still yield to the industry as the primary vehicle for managing risks, officials said. But it will work in conjunction with the industry to identify risk and opportunities.

"I expect there will be mechanisms developed in dialogue, just like there are in other industries," Clayton told The Wall Street Journal. He cited risk models for the financial industry that have been developed in conjunction with the Federal Reserve and Securities and Exchange Commission. He said the task force would examine current law and discuss possible actions that Congress could take.

The task force's charter document states it will "develop plans for responding to SI-enabled threats to our society, while preventing overregulation and regulatory capture that would stifle innovation and competition." It will also review current warnings and systemized notifications to the government of breaches, hacks, jailbreaks and other issues, and "recommend ways to improve the government's response capacity under existing authorities."

Formation of the task force follows rising public concern over AI, not just on its potential to wipe out jobs, but also is ability to perform sophisticated hacks and its use as a weapon-or even wipe out civilization, as some industry researchers fear. Data centers, which power the technology, also have faced growing public backlash.

Trump has largely advocated for less regulation, but the task force represents a growing recognition some government oversight will be necessary. Some inside the administration, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles have pushed for more government action to address the technology's unpopularity and its potential for cyberattacks-in addition to the use of biological weapons enabled by AI advance. That divide withing the administration that has hampered policymaking at times.

Skeptics have argued that so-called self regulation isn't adequate given that recent AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic and other companies have demonstrated that they are improving at potentially alarming rates.

The task force will have three vice chairs: Emil Michael, undersecretary of war for Research and Engineering, who will be responsible for coordination with AI companies; Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management, who will be responsible for coordination with critical infrastructure providers and other industry stakeholders; and Andrew Ferguson, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, who will oversee consumer interests and groups advocating for people of faith, children, privacy, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and freedom of association.

Members of the task force will include Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Richard Walters, White House deputy chief of staff, Bessent, Wiles and others. External participants will include venture capitalists David Sacks, co-chair of the president's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State in the George W. Bush administration, who will provide advice on national security.

"The Task Force shall act as a coordinating body to ensure that the U.S. remains at the forefront of SI development while protecting the American people," the task force charter states. "Recognizing there has always been inherent unpredictability in the effects of significant technological change, the Task Force shall focus on ensuring that emerging opportunities and risks are identified and communicated to government personnel, industry, and the American people."

The task force's work could be extended beyond 120 days if necessary or have its functions transferred to a government agency, its charter says.

"I feel very comfortable that we've gotten a group with a lot of experience, diverse skill sets and a common commitment," Clayton said. "These are all serious people who have addressed opportunities and risks in the past and are committed to doing this so that America wins the SI race and we win it through the benefit of the American people."