Trump’s High-risk, High-reward AI Action Plan

Aug 19, 2025

Guest

Aaron Bartnick

Guest

Ashley Finan

Guest

Jared Dunnmon

Jared Dunnmon, co-founder of a maritime logistics startup, Ashley Finan, a global fellow specializing in energy security, and Aaron Bartnick, a technology and economic security expert, dive deep into the Trump administration's AI action plan. They discuss its ambitious aim to dominate AI globally while navigating the repercussions for energy strategies and national security. The panel also critiques regulatory challenges, workforce integration, and the ethical contradictions within the plan, all while pondering America’s competitive stance against China in the AI landscape.

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INSIGHT

AI As A Geopolitical Race

The action plan frames AI as a race for global dominance tying ecosystem size to economic and military power.
Its priorities are faster innovation, deregulation, vast infrastructure, and US-centered global standards.

INSIGHT

Infrastructure And Energy Are Central

Pillar 2 focuses heavily on AI infrastructure with major energy and permitting reforms to speed data center and power deployment.
It prioritizes grid reliability, dispatchable generation, advanced geothermal, and nuclear alongside semiconductor revival.

INSIGHT

Export-First Global Strategy

Pillar 3 flips prior policy toward aggressive export to make the world run on American AI while trying to plug export-control loopholes.
This strategy is high-reward but irreversible if sensitive tech and IP flow abroad.

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In July, the Trump administration released what it calls an AI action plan. In it, along with several executive orders, the White House lays out its vision for building and expanding the country’s AI infrastructure.

Key tenets of that vision include removing regulatory hurdles and accelerating US dominance in the industry. It also has broad energy and security implications.

So how could the administration's high-risk, high-reward approach increase US market share in AI? Will it create tensions with major AI companies while potentially democratizing access to AI capabilities? And how does the plan diverge from Biden-era AI support, especially around environmental and energy considerations?

To discuss the action plan, we convened some of the leading AI experts at the Center for Global Energy Policy in early August, and this week on Columbia Energy Exchange we are sharing an audio recording of their discussion.

David Sandalow, CGEP’s inaugural fellow and the host of the AI, Energy and Climate podcast, moderated the panel. David also co-directs the Energy and Environment Concentration at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and was the lead author of the “Artificial Intelligence for Climate Change Mitigation Roadmap” report for the Innovation for Cool Earth Forum.

Aaron Bartnick, Jared Dunnmon, and Ashley Finan joined David on the webinar.

Aaron Bartnick is a global fellow at CGEP, where he focuses on technology and economic security. He also serves as chief of staff at the neural engineering company Science Corporation and as a fellow at Carnegie Mellon University’s Critical Technology Initiative.

Jared Dunnmon is a non-resident CGEP fellow and the co-founder and chief scientist of a maritime logistics startup. He previously served in the Department of Defense as technical director for artificial intelligence at the Defense Innovation Unit, was vice president of future technologies at battery firm Our Next Energy, and was an early team member at Snorkel AI.

Ashley Finan is a CGEP global fellow who previously served in senior leadership roles at Idaho National Laboratory, where she worked on nuclear energy and national security issues.

Credits: Hosted by Jason Bordoff and Bill Loveless. Produced by Mary Catherine O’Connor, Caroline Pitman, and Kyu Lee. Engineering by Gregory Vilfranc.