Chris Fall, the director of the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI), is stepping down from his role three months after taking over the position, a Department of Commerce spokesperson confirmed to MeriTalk.
Fall, who served as an Energy Department official in the first Trump administration, joined CAISI in April as its director. In this role, he oversees the federal entity responsible for evaluating frontier AI models.
According to reporting from Axios, Fall is resigning from his role. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Director Arvind Raman will oversee CAISI as acting director upon his departure.
Fall’s departure comes as frontier AI models are rapidly changing the cyber threat landscape, and the Trump administration is weighing possible sanctions against Chinese AI firms over allegations that they distilled U.S. models.
Fall is the second CAISI director to resign within the last three months. Fall joined CAISI a week after the Washington Post reported that Collin Burns was asked to resign from the role of CAISI director. Burns was removed after the White House realized he had previously worked for Anthropic, according to the Post.
CAISI has recently received significant attention from Congress, particularly from Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., who has called for codifying CAISI as a permanent unit within NIST.