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A new report from Americans for Responsible Innovation is urging the U.S. government to designate the artificial intelligence sector as critical infrastructure and assign CISA as the lead agency for managing its cyber risk. The proposal defines the sector broadly, covering frontier models, model weights, evaluation and alignment systems, datacenters, AI-specific hardware, semiconductor chips, and deployment platforms, and argues that attacks on any part of that stack could cascade into other critical sectors.
The push reflects rising concern over both cyber and physical threats to AI infrastructure, including supply-chain disruption and attacks on datacenters. Supporters cited in the report say a critical-infrastructure designation would give AI companies and operators access to stronger federal incident response, cybersecurity tooling, and threat intelligence through the existing sector risk management framework, while former officials also warned that naming a federal lead for AI security could create bureaucratic friction as U.S. policy evolves.
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Americans for Responsible Innovation published a report calling on the U.S. government to designate key AI models, companies, and supporting industries as critical infrastructure. The report also recommends naming CISA as the lead agency for managing cyber threats to the AI sector.
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The U.S. government is advancing multiple **critical infrastructure cybersecurity** initiatives focused on resilience, public-private coordination, and the secure adoption of **AI**. National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross said the administration wants AI to be **secure by design**, framing technical security as an enabler of innovation rather than a barrier. The approach includes closer collaboration with private industry, expanded threat-information sharing, federal support for offensive cyber operations, and new mechanisms for AI companies to coordinate on threat response while the administration revises earlier policies it views as constraining competitiveness. The Department of Energy is preparing to release its first cybersecurity strategic plan to strengthen defenses for the **power grid** and improve preparedness for cyber and physical incidents affecting the energy sector. That effort is expected to deepen coordination with private operators and evaluate AI investments that could help defend critical infrastructure against AI-enabled threats. A separate article on why attacks against critical national infrastructure are dangerous is **not about this same policy development**; it is a general explainer on infrastructure targeting and disruption rather than reporting on the U.S. government’s current AI and energy cybersecurity initiatives.
Jun 29, 2026
US cybersecurity officials said work is underway to stand up new and expanded government–industry mechanisms for sharing threat intelligence, with a particular focus on **AI security** and **operational technology (OT)** risks to critical infrastructure. CISA executive assistant director Nick Andersen said an **AI Information-Sharing and Analysis Center (AI-ISAC)** ordered by the White House is still in an “ongoing policy dialogue” phase, with stakeholders trying to resource the effort and avoid duplicating existing private-sector information-sharing initiatives; he also said there is no launch timeline and described the effort as moving through a “pre-decisional” process. In parallel, Andersen said DHS/CISA is planning a replacement for the disbanded **Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council (CIPAC)**, aiming to correct gaps in the prior structure—particularly the lack of an explicit cybersecurity charter—and to enable more targeted focus groups on issues such as **undersea cables** and OT systems. Separately, the White House Office of the National Cyber Director said it is developing an **AI security policy framework** intended to embed security controls into AI “tech stacks” in coordination with the Office of Science and Technology Policy, citing risks such as **data poisoning** and the potential for **agentic** capabilities to accelerate intrusions. In the private sector, the **Manufacturing ISAC (MFG-ISAC)** reported increased collaboration to address rising threats to manufacturing, including OT-focused initiatives such as tabletop exercises, OT training, and development of incident response playbooks and OT threat guidelines, alongside preparation for updated **CMMC** requirements—reinforcing the broader push toward structured, sector-based information sharing and readiness for critical-infrastructure cyber threats.
Jul 3, 2026
President Trump signed an executive order, **"Promoting Advanced Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Security,"** that directs federal agencies to strengthen cyber defenses across national security, defense, and civilian systems while promoting U.S. AI innovation. The order tasks **CISA, NSA, OMB, Treasury, ONCD**, and other agencies with near-term deadlines to prioritize cyber defense, expand AI-enabled defensive capabilities, and issue operational directives where appropriate. It also creates an **AI cybersecurity clearinghouse** to coordinate voluntary vulnerability scanning, validation, remediation, and patch distribution with AI companies and critical infrastructure operators, alongside a classified benchmarking process to determine when a system qualifies as a **"covered frontier model."** The final order adopts a narrower oversight approach than earlier drafts, preserving a **voluntary** framework for developers to share advanced models with the federal government and selected trusted partners before broader release while explicitly rejecting mandatory licensing, preclearance, or permitting. Reporting indicates the administration scaled back stronger pre-deployment review proposals after internal debate over how aggressively to address frontier-model cyber risks, with concerns centered on threats to critical infrastructure and the financial system and on whether the **Office of the National Cyber Director** has sufficient authority to coordinate the response. The order also directs the attorney general to prioritize criminal enforcement against actors who use AI to illegally access, damage, or exploit computer systems and data.
Sep 1, 2026