Trump signs AI education order to train K-12 students amidst competition from China
President Donald Trump signed a new executive order on Wednesday aimed at fostering AI education in K-12 schools and preparing students for an increasingly AI-centric workforce.
The new directive's overarching goal is to "ensure the United States remains a global leader in this technological revolution," according to the press release. The policy seeks to "promote AI literacy and proficiency of K-12 students" while also training educators so they can integrate AI education into their curriculums.
The move could be a response to recent developments in China. In March, the Beijing Municipal Education Commission announced that it would be making AI lessons mandatory for primary and secondary school students. Starting in September, Chinese students will be required to take eight hours of AI classes a year. And last week, Reuters reported that China's education ministry's plans to "integrate artificial intelligence (AI) applications into teaching efforts, textbooks and the school curriculum."
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The president's executive order establishes an Artificial Intelligence Education Task Force comprising members of various federal agencies, including the secretaries of Agriculture, Labor, Energy, Education, the Director of the National Science Foundation, and the Special Advisor for AI & Crypto.
China's rapid advancements in AI have threatened the previously comfortable position of the U.S. at the top of the AI industry, largely due to the introduction of DeepSeek. The Chinese company produced an AI model with capabilities comparable to OpenAI's reasoning models, and reportedly trained its R1 model for a fraction of the cost. DeepSeek rattled U.S. tech stocks and prompted President Trump to say at the time, "the release of DeepSeek, AI from a Chinese company should be a wake-up call for our industries that we need to be laser-focused on competing to win."
The executive order is broken down into four buckets: prioritizing the AI education of students, providing AI professional development for educators, growing and developing "AI-related Registered Apprenticeships" for relevant occupations and industries, and a "Presidential Artificial Intelligence Challenge."
The Challenge will highlight "student and educator achievements in AI" from a variety of age groups and across geographic regions. Keep an eye out for that within the next 90 days, as the executive order mandates.
Cecily is a tech reporter at Mashable who covers AI, Apple, and emerging tech trends. Before getting her master's degree at Columbia Journalism School, she spent several years working with startups and social impact businesses for Unreasonable Group and B Lab. Before that, she co-founded a startup consulting business for emerging entrepreneurial hubs in South America, Europe, and Asia. You can find her on X at @cecily_mauran.
