Sens Cantwell, Young, Blackburn, Hickenlooper Introduce Bill to Ensure U.S. Leads Global AI Innovation

Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Sens Todd Young (R-IN), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and John Hickenlooper (D-CO) introduced the bipartisan Future of AI Innovation Act, which lays the foundation to maintain U.S. leadership in the global race to develop artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies. The legislation promotes strong partnerships between government, business, civil society, and academia to advance AI research. It authorizes the U.S. AI Safety Institute at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to promote the development of voluntary standards, and creates testbeds with national labs to accelerate groundbreaking AI innovation for the benefit of future economic growth and national security. The Future of AI Innovation Act:

• Authorizes the NIST AI Safety Institute to Develop AI Standards: Formally establishes the AI Safety Institute at NIST to develop voluntary guidelines and standards with the private sector and federal agencies to promote robust long-term innovation in AI. The Institute will develop performance benchmarks, evaluations and clear transparency documentation standards for AI systems, while helping companies and consumers better understand and use AI tools.
• Creates New AI Testbeds with National Laboratories to Evaluate AI Models and Make Discoveries that Benefit the U.S. Economy: Creates testbed programs between NIST, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy (DOE) and the private sector to develop security risk tools and testing environments for companies to evaluate their systems for capabilities and limitations. This bill also authorizes public-private partnership testbeds to create new materials for advanced manufacturing and testbeds to make new scientific discoveries by using AI integrated with emerging technologies, such as quantum hybrid computing and robotics.
• Creates Grand Challenge Prize Competitions to Spur Private Sector AI Solutions and Innovation: Grand challenges elevate and expedite high-priority projects and engage researchers across the country for the benefit of the nation’s competitiveness. The grand challenges would prioritize finding AI solutions through the integration of advanced AI technology and emerging technologies like quantum computing. Grand challenges are aimed at overcoming barriers to the further development of AI and computing, microelectronics, advanced manufacturing, and other economic priorities like breakthroughs in maritime vessel propulsion systems and border security, including fentanyl and illegal drug detection.
• Accelerates AI Innovation with Publicly Available Datasets: Directs federal science agencies to make curated datasets available for public use to accelerate new advancements in AI applications, including solutions to global challenges in agriculture, medicine, transportation, manufacturing and more. Unlocking datasets will help make discoveries in AI and benefit small and medium businesses that often don't have access to as much data.
• Creates International Alliances on AI Standards, Research and Development: Forms a coalition with U.S. allies to cooperate on global standards and creates a multilateral research collaboration between scientific and academic institutions across the world to spur AI research and innovation. This collaboration is based on a NAIAC recommendation.