Euronews Next takes a look back at the first week of President Trump’s mandate to see what changes are coming for technology.
The first week of Donald Trump’s new mandate as US president wrapped up with a series of executive orders signed to promote science and technology.
The president prioritised a $500 billion (€476 billion) deal for investments in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, the formation of a digital assets advisory council, and postponed a TikTok ban in his first announcements.
In just under a week, this is what’s been done or announced by the Trump administration so far.
Undoing Joe Biden’s actions on AI
President Trump’s most recent move is an executive order that revokes some Biden-era policies that the administration says “act as barriers to American AI innovation”.
The executive order signed on January 23 gives high-ranking officials in Trump’s administration six months to formulate an AI action plan that will let the country develop systems “free from ideological bias or engineered social agendas”.
Trump also gives his administration time to review all of the policies implemented under Biden’s previous executive order and “suspend, revise or rescind” those that don’t agree with Trump’s AI vision.
EU technology diplomat previously told Euronews Next that revoking Biden’s executive order was one of the only promises Trump made about AI on the campaign trail.
Those experts also said the US AI Safety Institute, a body created under Biden’s previous executive order that researches the safe implementation of AI systems, could be at risk of being shut down.
Council to establish national AI, quantum initiatives
Trump also established the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), a council of 24 experts that will help the administration with “charting a path forward for American leadership in science and technology”.
This council is not a new effort; it works with each incoming US administration on these issues, but Trump’s council will be “refocusing” science and technology policy to prioritise “results-driven excellence and merit-based achievement,” according to theWhite House.
The council will launch national initiatives and guide research into AI and quantum energy, autonomous driving systems, drones, and biotechnology.
One of the guaranteed members of this committee is David Sacks, a former Paypal executive turned Trump’s so-called AI and crypto “czar”.
In December, Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social that Sacks’ mandate will be to guide policy on AI, crypto, “safeguarding free speech online,” and steering the US away from “Big Tech bias and censorship”.
$500 billion for AI infrastructure
President Trump has also proposed a joint venture with up to $500 billion (€476 billion) invested in AI.
According to the White House, Stargate, the new partnership between OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank, will start building out data centers and the electricity generation needed for the further development of the fast-evolving AI in Texas.
An initial investment of $100 billion (€95 billion) will be made, but the project could reach five times that sum, according to the Associated Press.
“It’s big money and high-quality people,” said Trump, adding that it’s “a resounding declaration of confidence in America’s potential” under his new administration.
Other partners are expected to join, including Microsoft, investor MGX, chipmakers Arm, and NVIDIA.
The initial plans for Stargate go back to the Biden administration, according to the Associated Press.
Tech news outlet The Information first reported on the project in March 2024. OpenAI has long relied on Microsoft data centres to building its AI systems, but it has increasingly signaled an interest in building its own data centres.
Trump bans digital US dollar
Trump also launched an executive order this week that lets individual citizens and companies “open public blockchain networks without persecution”.
The executive order also pledges to develop “lawful and legitimate dollar-backed stablecoins,” in an effort to protect the US dollar’s “sovereignty”.
His executive order also bans Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) because a digital form of the US dollar controlled by the country’s central bank could “threaten the stability of the financial system, individual privacy, and the sovereignty of the US,” the executive order reads.
Trump is also forming an advisory committee on digital asset markets, chaired by Sacks, that will within six months have a regulatory framework for “the issuance and operation” of digital assets.
Their recommendations will look into how the US could create and manage a national crypto stockpile that could be created from any cryptocurrencies the government has seized, a promise that Trump made on the campaign trail.
Throughout his re-election campaign, Trump pledged to make the US the “crypto capital of the world”.
Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have since launched their cryptocurrency meme coins, which skyrocketed in value during their first week in office.
TikTok extension
One of Trump’s first acts as president was to keep the popular entertainment app TikTok operating for another 75 days so Chinese owner ByteDance could find a US buyer.
A ban on the app was approved by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court, leading to a temporary outage of the short-form video social media app on January 19.
The app has since been restored temporarily for US users but remains off app stores hosted by Google and Apple.
Despite ByteDance’s refusal to sell, several buyers have come out in recent days, including a consortium with YouTube star Jimmy Donaldson aka Mr Beast, and “The People’s Bid” overseen by billionaire Frank McCourt.
