The US wants to push its view of AI cybersecurity standards to the rest of the world

The U.S. government wants the rest of the world to adopt its artificial intelligence cybersecurity standards, a top official with the Office of the National Cyber Director said Thursday. As part of an effort to advance American AI, the administration will be “undertaking diplomacy efforts to promote American AI cybersecurity standards and norms, establishing industry best practices for secure AI deployment and harnessing the full potential of AI tools,” said Alexandra Seymour, principal deputy assistant national cyber director for policy. Seymour’s comments at the 2026 Identity, Authentication, and the Road Ahead Policy Forum in Washington, D.C. partially reflect the Trump administration’s AI Action Plan released last summer, which said the departments of Commerce and State would “vigorously advocate for international AI governance approaches that promote innovation, reflect American values, and counter authoritarian influence,” but doesn’t explicitly mention international promotion of cybersecurity standards. Some of that effort has already materialized, with internationally oriented guides released in both May and December. The United States also isn’t the only one looking to influence international standards for AI security. AI also figures into the yet-to-be-released national cybersecurity strategy that Seymour’s office has been developing. And it dovetails with a pillar of the strategy focused on defending federal networks. Seymour said: “While AI is already helping industries enhance security and address the challenge of escalating cyberattacks, this administration will promote the rapid implementation of AI-enabled cyber defensive tools to detect, divert and deceive threat actors who continue targeting our vital systems and sectors on our federal systems. We must get our house in order. They need rapid modernization, and we’re working on policies to harden our networks, update our technologies and ensure we’re prepared for a post-quantum future.”

The six senior officials appointed by Pentagon leadership to oversee its recently restructured “critical technology areas” overseen by the CTO and accelerate the military’s adoption of each of those top-priority capabilities were officially announced last week. Posts on Instagram and X from official accounts for the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering and Chief Technology Officer spotlighted brief bios for each of those “accountable senior officials” who will lead the Defense Department’s new CTAs. “The six CTAs are department-wide imperatives designed to maintain American military dominance — and now, each one will have accountable leaders leading the tangible ‘sprints’ under each CTA. Each sprint will be designed to deliver advanced capabilities to our warfighters rapidly and at scale,” the posts stated. For years the Pentagon has grappled with long-standing challenges that have stymied the military’s pursuits to integrate emerging technologies across the back office and in operational settings. The DOD’s list of critical technology areas has included the most pressing challenges and capabilities needed for modern warfare since it was conceptualized. In November, Pentagon CTO and Undersecretary for R&E Emil Michael revealed his plan to trim the department’s list of 14 CTAs established during the Biden administration down to six, with renamed categories. The focus areas in the updated catalog include: applied artificial intelligence; biomanufacturing; contested logistics technologies; quantum and battlefield information dominance; scaled directed energy; and scaled hypersonics. According to the social media posts and their online bios, the six appointees are: Applied Artificial Intelligence (AAI) — Cameron Stanley, a former national security transformation lead for AWS and chief of the DOD Algorithmic Warfare Cross Functional Team (previously known as Project Maven), who was also recently hired as the department’s Chief Digital and AI Officer; Biomanufacturing (BIO) — Dr. Gary Vora, the Navy’s former principal scientist for biotechnology, who also initiated and led the Naval Research Lab’s basic research efforts in the microbiological sciences; Contested Logistics Technologies (LOG) — Dr. Robert Mantz, who has more than four decades of federal service, including senior roles at the Army Research Office and DARPA; Quantum and Battlefield Information Dominance (Q-BID) — Dr. Kevin Rudd, a specialist in electronic warfare, radar, RF systems and advanced sensing, who previously served at DARPA and the Office of Naval Research; Scaled Directed Energy (SCADE) — Dr. Christopher Vergien, an expert in DE and national defense technology, who previously served at the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency; Scaled Hypersonics (SHY) — Dr. James Weber, an engineer with more than 30 years of experience in the research and development of hypersonic systems, including at the Air Force Research Lab. The Pentagon has not yet released a detailed plan for the CTA’s forthcoming “tangible” technology sprints.

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