The Trump administration has established a new artificial intelligence task force called the "Super Intelligence Force," led by Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton, with plans to submit a report within 120 days that systematically evaluates the risks and opportunities brought by advanced AI and clarifies what role the federal government should play in AI safety, national security, and industry regulation.
Clayton will effectively assume the role of the Trump administration's new AI policy coordinator. He stated that if the United States falls behind in AI competition, it could itself increase known and unknown risks, especially when facing US adversaries. Therefore, the task force's policy starting point is not simply to restrict AI development, but to simultaneously address two goals: "maintaining technological leadership" and "controlling security risks."
The task force will have three vice chairs, covering industry, infrastructure, and consumer interests respectively. Emil Michael, responsible for research, development, and engineering affairs, will primarily coordinate with AI companies; Scott Kupor, Director of the US Office of Personnel Management, will work with critical infrastructure enterprises and other industry participants; and Andrew Ferguson, Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, will handle consumer interests as well as issues related to children, privacy, freedom of speech, religious belief, and freedom of association.
Members also include Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and other senior officials. External advisors include venture capitalist David Sacks and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, with Rice participating in national security-related discussions.
The most notable aspect of this mechanism is that the Trump administration currently does not intend to let the federal regulatory system directly replace AI companies' own safety mechanisms. Under the current arrangement, the task force will continue to work with companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Nvidia to identify risks, while reviewing whether existing laws are sufficient to address new problems brought by AI, and studying whether Congress will need to take further legislative action in the future.
The government will also assess whether existing systems are effective enough in handling AI safety incidents such as data breaches, hacker attacks, and model "jailbreaking." In other words, companies remain responsible for the first layer of security controls, while the government is more inclined to assume the role of cross-departmental coordination, national security response, and institutional backstop.
This direction is also consistent with the voluntary safety principles recently promoted by the White House. Previously, tech company leaders including OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang attended a White House meeting and agreed to a series of voluntary principles involving model monitoring, independent review, and reporting major safety issues to boards of directors. The Trump administration still prefers to rely on internal corporate controls and industry commitments rather than directly establishing a mandatory comprehensive regulatory system.
Meanwhile, the White House is reshaping the entire AI policy framework. Trump signed an executive order on September 29 requiring federal administrative departments to gradually use "Super Intelligence" and "SI" to replace "Artificial Intelligence" and "AI" in official communications and policy documents, and requiring the government to establish a new federal definition. The newly established "Super Intelligence Force" emerged precisely against this policy backdrop.
From the currently disclosed framework, the Trump administration's direction is already relatively clear 鈥?it will not abandon AI risk governance, but still places maintaining US technological leadership at the core of its policy, with the government taking on more of a coordination and backstop function rather than directly replacing the enterprise-led safety system.