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July 29, 2025
America’s AI Action Plan: Analyzing the Strategy for Global Leadership
Event Summary On July 29, AEI hosted an event examining the Trump administration’s AI Action Plan and its implications for businesses, consumers, and national security. The panel, moderated by AEI’s John Bailey, began with initial reactions to the legislation before diving into its detailed provisions. AEI’s Will Rinehart analyzed impacts on data centers and AI…
July 29, 2025
Taxing and/or Licensing Digital Platforms
Earlier this month, the European Commission Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy—Henna Virkkunen—confirmed that the European Union (EU) does not plan to levy fees on Big Tech companies to recover the high costs faced by EU antitrust regulators monitoring and enforcing the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Strong support for such a levy has…
July 29, 2025
The Tea App Breach Shows Why We Can’t Regulate for Openness Without Planning for Security
Last week, a dating safety app called Tea Dating Advice—which allows women to anonymously share dating experiences to keep others safe—was a viral success. It had risen to the top of Apple’s App Store charts and had over 1.6 million users. Just as it appeared poised to become a major tool to advance digital safety,…
July 28, 2025
America’s AI Action Plan: What to Watch
The Trump administration’s AI Action Plan outlines bold steps to accelerate innovation and boost US leadership in AI. My recent post highlights some of the needed proposals to cut red tape, streamline permitting, and spur private-sector growth. Yet for all its ambition, the plan overlooks several high-stakes gaps—areas where evolving risks may require more proactive…
July 25, 2025
How Does Semiconductor Trade Work?
Key Points How Does Semiconductor Trade Work? How is it that South Korea—one of the world’s most important makers of the chips critical for goods from cars to computers—imports more semiconductors from the United States than it exports? Semiconductor supply chains are immensely complex. Some of the trade dynamics, like America’s unexpected surplus in chip…
July 25, 2025
The AI Action Plan: Securing America’s Future in the Age of Intelligence
The White House released its 2025 AI Action Plan—a 28-page blueprint focused on securing US leadership in artificial intelligence. It’s an executive-led strategy with minimal reliance on Congress, emphasizing rapid deployment and national competitiveness. The plan is organized around three pillars: innovation, infrastructure, and international engagement. Each pillar underscores how AI is not just a…
July 24, 2025
Airline Security’s Best-Kept Secret
Salutations to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for announcing earlier this month that people would no longer need to remove their shoes at security checkpoints in our nation’s airports. We should welcome exceptions to the generally rigid risk aversion in government-run airline security. And the really good news is that, formally or informally,…
July 23, 2025
Trump’s New AI Plan Is Necessary but Insufficient
My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers, At minimum, the Trump White House’s new AI Action Plan deserves credit for being honest about what it is: not a blueprint for technocratic governance or navigating a world of superintelligence, but rather a stab at geostrategic competitiveness policy designed to ensure American dominance in what could be the defining technology of our time….
July 22, 2025
Europe’s Data Strategy Is Built on Wishful Thinking
The European Union is trying to engineer a digital revolution. Through its European Strategy for Data, EU officials hope to create a “single market for data,” knitting together governments, businesses, and individuals into a shared system of industrial and personal data. The goal is an innovative, sovereign digital ecosystem that can rival the United States…
July 16, 2025
Federal Data Consolidation: Protecting Civil Liberties in the Digital Age
Event Summary On July 16, AEI’s Shane Tews introduced Palantir Technologies’ Courtney Bowman, the Center for Democracy & Technology’s Alexandra Reeve Givens, the IRS’s Daniel Werfel, and Election Security & Innovation Consulting’s Kim Wyman. Ms. Tews emphasized the critical importance of addressing cyber threats related to data access, use, and control. The discussion began by…