The Commerce Department\u2019s new artificial intelligence outpost near Silicon Valley, set up to facilitate the export of American AI products abroad, is also working to build relationships between the AI industry and federal agencies.<\/p>\n
In March, Commerce officially opened the National AI Center in San Francisco. The center was established under the International Trade Administration as part of the Trump administration\u2019s 2025 AI Action Plan,<\/a> which called on Commerce to create a program that would gather proposals from industry for \u201cfull-stack AI export packages.\u201d<\/p>\n The center has now established an AI exports program that focuses on priority export licenses, government advocacy and access to federal financing.<\/p>\n Moksh Jawa, chief technology officer at the Commerce Department, said the center was set up intentionally near the heart of the U.S. AI industry to \u201cbest understand their needs, their trajectories, their plans, so that we could best support and partner with them to export American AI.\u201d<\/p>\n ]]><\/p>\n Commerce released a call for proposals<\/a> to participate in the American AI Exports Program consortia in April.<\/p>\n But in addition to the Commerce center\u2019s outward focus on exports, officials there are also working to \u201cmake sure that the American government itself is leveraging American AI as significantly as possible,\u201d Jawa said during a Thursday federal technology showcase hosted at the General Service Administration\u2019s headquarters in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n \u201cNow we\u2019re hyper focused on also enabling American AI companies to work directly with government,\u201d Jawa said. \u201cAnd by setting up an outpost in San Francisco, we want that to be kind of a top of funnel or evaluative office that can be used to enable those relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n GSA has been at the center of the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to use AI within government, through initiatives like the USAi test platform.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cNaturally, that brings us very quickly to GSA, which is our [U.S. government] expert in evaluating such technology in all things procurement,\u201d Jawa continued. \u201cAnd so we\u2019re very excited to partner with GSA on spinning up some of that functionality out of the National AI Center.\u201d<\/p>\n Agencies leaning into AI, automation<\/p>\n Jawa\u2019s comments came at an event where officials from GSA and other agencies convened to share lessons on government-wide technology adoption, with a particular focus on AI and automation.<\/p>\n GSA Deputy Administrator Mike Lynch said his agency\u2019s AI use rate is now above 70% of the workforce, compared to 10-15% at the start of the Trump administration. GSA has aggressively moved to automate its internal work, after losing nearly 40% of its workforce<\/a> over the past 18 months.<\/p>\n ]]><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re at a really interesting inflection point,\u201d Lynch said at the outset of the event. \u201cWhat are the resources that are out there for other parts of the government that want to start embedding these technologies into their workflows.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam Starr, the chief information officer at the Office of Personnel Management, said just giving employees access to cutting edge tools \u201cis not enough\u201d to ensure effective adoption.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are many barriers other than just tool access,\u201d Starr said. \u201cIn order to drive adoption and help people really rethink their work and get the benefits that they can realize with this technology in freeing up time and delivering better services to our constituents.\u201d<\/p>\n He said OPM has been highlighting use cases and giving bonuses \u201cfor people who innovate.\u201d The agency has also set up an AI Catalyst Program to have its top engineers work with business units on \u201crethinking their work around technology,\u201d Starr continued.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe it\u2019s a connection to a new data source, but trying to drive down those barriers to tech adoption,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n