The Nickel Report

On July 23, 2025, President Donald J. Trump issued three key Executive Orders (the AI Executive Orders) simultaneously with the release of Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan (AI Action Plan). Building on earlier executive actions, the AI Action Plan sets forth three pillars that outline the Administration’s artificial intelligence (AI) industrial policy: (1) accelerate innovation; (2) build American AI infrastructure; and (3) lead in international AI diplomacy and security. The White House article accompanying the release of the AI Action Plan outlines four key policy objectives:

• Exporting American AI: The Commerce and State Departments will partner with industry to deliver secure, full-stack AI export packages – including hardware, models, software, applications, and standards – to America’s friends and allies around the world.
• Promoting Rapid Buildout of Data Centers: Expedite and modernize permitting for data centers and semiconductor fabrication, as well as create new national initiatives to increase employment in high-demand occupations like electricians and HVAC technicians.
• Enabling Innovation and Adoption: Remove onerous federal regulations that hinder AI development and deployment and seek private sector input on rules that will facilitate the removal.
• Upholding Free Speech in Frontier Models: Update federal procurement guidelines to ensure that the government only contracts with frontier large language model developers who ensure that their systems are objective and free from top-down ideological bias.

The three AI Executive Orders issued alongside the AI Action Plan seek to implement these policies. Each of these three AI Executive Orders is further described below.

Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure

In the Executive Order titled Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure, the President directs the Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and other relevant executive departments and agencies, to launch an initiative to provide financial support, such as loans, loan guarantees, grants, and tax incentives, for certain “Qualifying Projects.” These Qualifying Projects include “Data Center Projects,” defined to include facilities that requires greater than 100 megawatts (MW) of new electric load dedicated to AI inference, training, simulation, or synthetic data generation, and “Covered Component Projects,” defined to include infrastructure comprising “Covered Components” (defined as “the materials, products, and infrastructure that are required to build Data Center Projects or otherwise upon which Data Center Projects depend”) or facilities with the primary purpose of manufacturing or otherwise producing these Covered Components. This financial support would apply where:

• The lead sponsor providing financial and other support to the Data Center Project or Covered Component Project has committed at least $500 million in capital expenditures to the project;
• The Data Center Project or Covered Component Project involves an incremental electric load addition of greater than 100 MW;
• The Data Center Project or Covered Component Project protects national security; or
• The Data Center Project or Covered Component Project has otherwise been designated by the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Commerce, or the Secretary of Energy as a “Qualifying Project.”

The Executive Order directs the Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with OSTP and other relevant executive departments and agencies to identify and submit to the Director of OSTP a report of any relevant existing financial support that can be used to assist Qualifying Projects, consistent with the protection of national security. This effort is likely to identify various programs, including Department of Energy loan guarantees, U.S. Export-Import Bank programs, CHIPS Act incentives, and financing programs administered by the Office of Strategic Capital of the Department of Defense, and to further the Administration’s policy goals expressed in its recent nuclear energy-related Executive Orders and Presidential Memorandum entitled Simplifying the Funding of Energy Infrastructure and Critical Mineral and Material Projects. 

Interestingly, the Executive Order’s definition of “Covered Components” takes a somewhat selective approach to identifying the kinds of energy infrastructure projects that may comprise a “Qualifying Project.” For example, qualifying intermittent generating resources is likely to be challenging for project developers, but natural gas turbines, coal power equipment, nuclear power equipment, geothermal power equipment, and “any other dispatchable baseload energy resources, including electrical infrastructure (including backup power supply)” serving a Data Center Project are expressly included. Battery and other energy storage systems seem likely to qualify in many cases, given the language in the Executive Order. Language in the Executive Order also appears intended to limit the requirements for reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by leveraging available categorical exclusions, directing the establishment of new categorical exclusions, and clarifying that the applicable interpretation of “major Federal Action” under NEPA means that a NEPA review likely is not required where federal financial assistance (e.g., loans, loan guarantees, grants, tax incentives) represents less than 50 percent of total project costs.

The Executive Order further:

• Instructs the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to assist in expediting permitting on federal and non-federal lands by developing or modifying environmental regulations that might impact Qualifying Project development.
• Instructs the Administrator of EPA to identify Brownfield sites and Superfund sites for use by Qualifying Projects develop guidance to help expedite environmental reviews for qualified reuse, and assist state governments and private parties within 180 days to return such Brownfield sites and Superfund sites to productive use.
• Directs the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Energy to initiate programmatic consultation under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act with respect to common construction activities for Qualifying Projects over the next ten years. Such a programmatic consultation will accelerate permitting for Qualifying Projects because the agencies would not have to complete a separate ESA Section 7 consultation for each individual Qualifying Project.
• Authorizes the Executive Director (Executive Director) of the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (FPISC) to designate Qualifying Projects as “transparency projects,” which are posted to the Fast-41 Permitting Dashboard, and, where applicable, as FAST-41 “covered projects” for coordinated permitting review with increased efficiency.
• Directs the Army Corps of Engineers to determine whether an activity-specific Clean Water Act section 404 nationwide permit is needed to facilitate the efficient permitting of activities related to Qualifying Projects within 180 days. Section 404 permits are often critical federal authorizations needed for new development projects. Nationwide permits provide streamlined authorization for impacts to federal waters and wetlands for categories of activities that are not likely to result in more than minimal impacts. Creating a new nationwide permit for data center-related activities would help expedite their authorization.
• Directs the Department of the Interior, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense to authorize data center construction on appropriate federal lands. Relatedly, on July 24, 2025, the Department of Energy announced four site selections (Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge Reservation, Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, and Savannah River Site) for public-private projects following a process initiated with a departmental Request for Information published in April 2025. These sites are expected to be involved in Department of Energy plans with private sector partners to develop AI data center and energy generation projects, and site-specific solicitations are expected in the coming months with selections possible by the end of 2025.

Promoting the Export of the American AI Technology Stack

In the Executive Order titled Promoting the Export of the American AI Technology Stack, the President directs the Secretary of Commerce to establish and implement a new “American AI Exports Program” within 90 days to support the development and deployment of US “full-stack” AI export packages. These full-stack, end-to-end packages include:

• AI-optimized computer hardware (e.g., chips, servers, and accelerators), data center storage, cloud services, and networking, with descriptions of whether and to what extent such items are manufactured in the United States;
• Data pipelines and labeling systems;
• AI models and systems;
• Measures to ensure the security and cybersecurity of AI models and systems; and
• AI applications for specific use cases (e.g., software engineering, education, healthcare, agriculture, or transportation).

As part of the establishment of the new exports program, the Executive Order directs the Secretary of Commerce to issue a public call for proposals from industry-led consortia for inclusion in the program, requiring proposals to include descriptions of a full-stack AI technology package (including the components listed above), specific target countries or regional blocs for export engagement, a business and operational model to explain, at a high level, which entities will build, own, and operate data centers and associated infrastructure, requested federal incentives and support mechanisms, and compliance with all relevant United States export control regimes, outbound investment regulations, and end-user policies, and relevant export controls guidance from the Bureau of Industry and Security within the Department of Commerce.

The Executive Order directs the Economic Diplomacy Action Group (EDAG), established in the Presidential Memorandum of June 21, 2024, to coordinate mobilization of federal financing tools in support of priority AI export packages and directs the Secretary of State to, among other things, develop and execute a unified federal government strategy for the export of AI technologies and standards; align technical, financial, and diplomatic resources to accelerate deployment of priority AI export packages under the new program; coordinate US participation in related multilateral initiatives and country-specific partnerships; support partner countries in fostering pro-innovation regulatory, data, and infrastructure environments; analyze market access, including technical trade barriers and regulatory impediments; and coordinate with the Small Business Administration’s Office of Investment and Innovation to facilitate investment in US small businesses to the development of American AI technologies and the manufacture of AI infrastructure, hardware, and systems.

The EDAG is directed to deploy available federal tools to support priority export packages to the maximum permissible extent, and the Executive Order specifically references direct loans and loan guarantees (including through the U.S. Export-Import Bank); equity investments, co-financing, political risk insurance, and credit guarantees (including through the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation); and technical assistance and feasibility studies (including through the U.S. Trade and Development Agency). Submission of proposals for inclusion in the exports program will be required 90 days after the public call is issued, and proposals will be considered thereafter on a rolling basis. Proposals will be evaluated for inclusion and designation as priority AI export packages, supported through priority access to these and other federal financing tools.

Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government

In the Executive Order titled Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government, the President directs the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in consultation with the Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy, the Administrator of General Services, and the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, to issue guidance with 120 days to federal agencies regarding the procurement of large language models (LLMs) consistent with Administration policy objectives, including prioritizing factual accuracy and ideological neutrality in LLM-generated responses.

Conclusion

These three AI Executive Orders represent the first implementation of the new AI Action Plan and fit within the Administration’s broader industrial and diplomatic policies with respect to AI and American exports. The financing support incentives signaled in the AI Executive Orders represent potential new opportunities for American data center projects and related infrastructure, and for AI export packages and their components. The ambitious scope of the new AI Action Plan indicates further executive and agency action in this area is likely to be forthcoming. The Hunton team will provide updates as new developments occur and is available to assist with any questions.