The Trump administration unveiled a slate of initiatives on Friday aimed at expanding the U.S. artificial intelligence (AI) full stack globally, announcing new export, standards, support, and financing efforts at the India AI Impact Summit.
Speaking at the summit, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Director Michael Kratsios outlined four major efforts: A National Champions Initiative; the U.S. Tech Corps; new international financing mechanisms, including a World Bank fund; and an AI Agent Standards Initiative led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
The moves align with the administration’s AI Action Plan, which directs federal agencies to work with industry to export “secure, full-stack AI export packages” to U.S. allies. The White House described that stack as hardware, models, software, applications, and standards.
“Prioritizing AI for your people means pursuing a sovereign AI capability for your country now. This begins with the rapid adoption of the best components of the technology stack available, while your national champions work to develop their own,” Kratsios said at the summit.
National Champions Initiative
The Commerce Department will oversee the new National Champions Initiative, which aims to integrate partner nations’ leading AI firms into customized American AI export stacks, according to a White House fact sheet.
Kratsios said the initiative will “integrate partner nation companies with the American AI stack, ensuring that no country has to choose between completing the stack and developing domestic AI.”
He also emphasized that the administration is aiming to help countries build “meaningful AI sovereignty,” and it does not want to govern AI regulations and innovation across the world.
“We believe American companies and technology succeeds in open competition, and we want to lead an AI ecosystem that works with your local technologies, local datasets, and local languages, rather than imposing global standards or pursuing vendor-lock-in,” Kratsios explained.
U.S. Tech Corps
The administration is also launching the U.S. Tech Corps as a new branch under the Peace Corps. The program would deploy up to 5,000 American volunteers and advisers to partner nations over the next five years.
Some examples of service projects that Tech Corps volunteers could support, according to the Peace Corps website, include: Helping teachers use AI in schools to improve lesson planning and student outcomes, using American AI technology within national or regional health offices for data analysis, and serving in agricultural extension offices to help evaluate and refine training datasets.
Beyond providing last-mile support in AI deployment, the Peace Corps said volunteers could help “identify where AI procurements would be most impactful, and otherwise building capacity for sustained AI adoption and innovation.”
Volunteer opportunities are expected to open as early as spring 2026, with on-the-ground service beginning in fall 2026, following initial sales through the American AI Exports Program.
“In everything from energy and education, to manufacturing and medicine, to transportation and agriculture, I am confident that the American AI stack can be key to unlocking new economic and social benefits for your people,” Kratsios said.
AI Agent Standards Initiative
NIST’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) will lead the new AI Agent Standards Initiative to develop interoperable and secure standards for agentic AI systems, the White House said.
The initiative will create industry-led technical standards and protocols to build public trust in AI agents and build an interoperable agent ecosystem, NIST said in a press release.
The agency added that without clear guardrails and standards, “innovators may face a fragmented ecosystem and stunted adoption.”
CAISI will collaborate with the National Science Foundation and NIST’s Information Technology Laboratory on three pillars:
- Facilitating industry-led development of agent standards and U.S. leadership in international standards;
- Fostering community-led open-source protocol development and agent maintenance; and
- Advancing research in AI agent security and identity to create new use cases and adoption across economic sectors.
In December, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to preempt state AI laws to avoid a patchwork of regulations that, according to the White House, could hinder innovation.
Since then, GOP lawmakers have been pushing for a singular national regulatory framework that would regulate AI sector-by-sector. Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., who has been a leader in those efforts, noted earlier this month that approach would evaluate the same model across two different deployments and “completely different risk profiles.”
Kratsios echoed that approach in India, arguing that “a primary limiting factor to U.S. AI adoption is regulatory certainty and clarity.”
“It is our position that, with smart updates to existing frameworks to reflect new technological realities, use-case and sector-specific regulation best allows adoption,” he said. “This gives industry confidence that tomorrow’s rules will be common-sense developments of today’s.”
NIST said it will announce research, guidelines, and deliverables under the initiative in the coming months.
International funding opportunities
To address costs, Kratsios said the Treasury Department is launching a new fund at the World Bank to help developing countries overcome AI adoption barriers.
“The AI stack is expensive. Through the enormous energy and material demands of its infrastructure, it brings the digital transformation of our world back into physical reality. Data centers, semiconductors, power production, all of these elements require physical labor and resources,” Kratsios said.
“To empower developing partner countries to overcome financing obstacles as they import the American AI stack, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and a new World Bank Fund have all initiated new AI-focused programs,” he added.
The State Department and the Small Business Administration are also launching financing opportunities, the White House said in its fact sheet. On Thursday, the State Department announced its $200 million “Edge AI” program to fund AI-driven smartphones across the Indo-Pacific region.