Trump’s planned NIST layoffs will undermine federal AI capacity and likely delay his AI goals.
Among the Trump administration’s designs to dismantle much of the federal government is a reported decision to fire all probationary employees at National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), including experts working on the implementation of the CHIPS and Science Act. Such a move would conflict with the president’s aspiration to “solidify our position as the global leader in AI.” China’s AI advancements and the EU’s AI investments threaten the U.S.’s lead in AI development and diffusion. Soon-to-be former NIST staff played a big role in building that initial lead. Their departure may hinder the nation’s ability to identify and seize the next opportunities to accelerate AI’s progress.
An Existing Talent Shortage
A dearth of AI talent among the federal workforce has long been cited as a barrier to AI policy development. Former Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer Lynne Parker, who contributed to AI policy development under the first Trump administration, warned of a talent “shortage” and lamented that many experts are lured to private labs by much higher wages. The Bipartisan Senate AI Working Group called for recruiting and retaining AI experts through the U.S. Digital Service (later co-opted by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE] and rebranded as the U.S. DOGE Service) and other offices. Similarly, the Bipartisan House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence encouraged the development of more pathways for AI experts to join the government and supported more frequent upskilling opportunities for existing employees to develop AI knowledge. President Biden initiated an AI Talent Surge to try to make up for the broadly recognized lack of data scientists, software engineers, and computer scientists. The AI and Tech Talent Task Force responsible for overseeing that surge announced plans to hire more than 500 such experts between September 2024 and September 2025. As of October 2024, the White House reported having hired 250 AI practitioners.
As of February 2025, however, that surge is in jeopardy after President Trump announced plans to dismiss 497 probationary employees at NIST. Axios reported that this mass layoff may “gut” the U.S. AI Safety Institute (AISI), which operates within NIST and led much of the AI policy research and development under the Biden administration. In addition to leaving the AISI shorthanded, these cuts will likely include experts assigned to the implementation of the CHIPS Act. That 2022 initiative aims to increase domestic production of the semiconductors necessary to train and deploy leading AI models.
Implications of a Decrease in AI Expertise
Such a drastic and immediate reduction in AI talent will diminish the federal government’s already limited collective AI capacity. Prior to these planned firings, a lack of AI know-how already stood out as a barrier to realizing the government’s AI aims. In 2021, the National Security Commission on AI cited an “alarming talent deficit” as “the great impediment to the United States being AI-ready by 2025. At a higher level, the AI talent pipeline is still a work in progress. An AI faculty shortage has left higher education institutions with too few instructors to train the next generation of experts. Of course, those AI experts who may have previously considered working for the administration may now have second thoughts given the apparent lack of job security.
This self-imposed, likely long-term brain drain cuts against Trump’s AI aims. In his executive order on AI, he made clear that his administration sought “to sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance in order to promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.” Vice President J.D. Vance doubled down on that policy in a recent speech at the Paris AI Action Summit. Vance announced that “this administration will ensure that American AI technology continues to be the gold standard worldwide.” But staying at the front of the global AI race requires an expansion, not a reduction. In December, Walter Copan, who served as NIST director in the first Trump administration, called on Congress to substantially invest in NIST given its key role in making sure the U.S. outpaces China in AI R&D.
The loss of officials with experience interpreting and implementing the CHIPS Act is especially questionable given that the administration has repeatedly championed efforts to build out the nation’s domestic AI infrastructure. President Trump touted the Stargate Project—a private collaboration, which predated Trump returning to the White House, between OpenAI, SoftBank, and others to invest up to $500 billion in data centers—as one of his first events in office. Relatedly, he created the National Energy Dominance Council to assist in AI development. A drop in AI expertise will detract from those efforts.
Supporters of the layoffs may contend that by removing staff with a different, more risk averse approach to AI, Trump is actually increasing the odds of rapid AI progress occurring under his administration. But that argument assumes that NIST sets the nation’s AI priorities or long-term AI strategies, rather than what NIST actually does, which is the technical implementation of policies set by others in the administration and providing recommendations for AI development.
In 2018, NIST and the Office of Science and Technology Policy jointly organized a symposium to identify ways to accelerate the transfer of technology from the federal government to the private sector. In 2019, Trump charged NIST with creating AI technical standards and crafting a strategy for increased federal investment in AI. Biden then helped add to NIST’s plate. The CHIPS Act that he supported and signed allocated more than $50 billion to the Department of Commerce to improve the nation’s semiconductor ecosystem. NIST had a major role in that effort. For instance, this time last year, NIST announced $300 million in chip manufacturing R&D projects. Those sorts of initiatives will not get any easier with fewer staff.
Reduced capacity at AISI comes as less of a surprise. The Biden administration spun up the AISI to help further its specific approach to AI governance—namely one focused on mitigating AI risks, rather than unfettered innovation and growth. As Vance made clear in Paris, this administration has no intention of continuing Biden’s AI safety agenda. Nevertheless, the administration’s pursuit of AI opportunities may become harder if leading researchers cannot help identify when and how to invest in AI efforts.
The hollowing out of NIST and AISI may also accelerate ongoing state-level efforts to regulate AI, which may decrease the pace of AI advances envisioned by Trump. Some conservative think tanks identified the possibility of a patchwork of state policies as a major inhibitor to AI progress. In firing hundreds of AI experts, however, Trump may have sent an unintended signal to state legislators that the federal government is in a far weaker position to implement and enforce any AI laws. State legislators worried about AI risks such as biased hiring and firing decisions and labor force disruptions would reasonably read these dismissals as greater evidence for states to act.
Looking Ahead
Several key developments warrant careful monitoring in the coming months. First, the rate and scope of state-level AI regulation may serve as an early indicator of how the federal expertise gap affects policy fragmentation. Second, the movement of displaced NIST talent could reshape the private sector AI landscape, particularly if these experts cluster at specific companies or form new ventures. Though 500 AI experts may not seem like a significant number, that’s a substantial tranche of talent. Consider that a mere 205 individuals received AI PhDs in 2022. Finally, Congress’s response to this situation—whether through oversight hearings, new legislation, or funding adjustments—may signal deeper shifts in the federal government’s approach to AI governance. If Congress opts not to try to make up for this loss of talent, then AI labs may exercise even more influence over the direction of AI.
– Kevin Frazier is a contributing editor at Lawfare, an adjunct professor at Delaware Law, and a Democracy and Tech Fellow with the Leadership Center for AG Studies Published courtesy of Lawfare.
