Trump creates Super Intelligence Force to coordinate federal AI policy

President Donald Trump announced the creation of a "Super Intelligence Force" in a post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, 4 October 2026, naming Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton to lead the new federal task force on artificial intelligence, the Associated Press reported. TechCrunch confirmed the announcement the same day, noting it follows an executive order in which Trump sought to rebrand artificial intelligence as "super intelligence".

What the task force will do

• Clayton chairs the group, with Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson, Undersecretary of War for Research and Engineering Emil Michael and Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor serving as vice chairs, according to TechCrunch, citing The Wall Street Journal.
• The task force will coordinate the federal government's engagement with "Consumers, Public Interest Groups, Religious Organizations, Critical Infrastructure Providers, and Super Intelligence Companies," Trump said on Truth Social, as reported by Straight Arrow News.
• The panel has 120 days to report on the risks and opportunities AI poses, Clayton told The Wall Street Journal, according to Straight Arrow News.
• Clayton said "the risk of not being first is high," underscoring the administration's stated desire for the United States to lead the industry, Straight Arrow News reported.
• The task force's charter reportedly pairs plans for responding to AI-enabled threats with a bar on "overregulation and regulatory capture," according to TechCrunch.
• The group reports to Trump and his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, the Associated Press said, and its creation follows a voluntary, non-binding AI safety pledge that tech executives signed at the White House the previous week, per TechCrunch.

Why it matters

The task force formalises an approach that favours competitive speed over binding rules, leaving the voluntary safety pledge signed by AI companies as the main near-term check on the industry rather than enforceable regulation. For the Caspian region, where Azerbaijan and neighbouring states are courting the same frontier AI labs for infrastructure and data-centre investment, Washington's choice to prioritise industry self-policing over statutory oversight signals that the regulatory model closest to the EU AI Act's binding risk tiers is unlikely to be matched by the United States in the near term, a gap governments and AI vendors operating across both jurisdictions will need to navigate.