Promoting United States Leadership in Standards Act of 2025
- Marta Beckwith
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
The bipartisan “Promoting United States Leadership in Standards Act of 2025” was recently introduced in the United States Senate by Senators Blackburn and Warner.[1] The intent of the Act is to “promote United States leadership in technical standards” and “to encourage and enable United States participation in developing standards and specifications for artificial intelligence and other critical and emerging technologies.” This is obviously a worthy goal.
The current system for the development and adoption of standards historically worked reasonably well. But the cracks in the system have become apparent, as Senators Warner and Blackburn acknowledge:
Several years ago, things started to change. In the wireless space, Chinese companies like Huawei and ZTE – backed by the financial might of the Chinese government – started flooding the zone when it came to standards setting bodies. This allowed them to influence standards in ways that benefited their companies and furthered their interests . . . . A 2022 report on the China’s impact on international standards found that China has attempted to steer the standardization of emerging technology areas by heavily increasing their number of participants and standards proposals.[2]
The Act is focused on standards for artificial intelligence and other critical and emerging technologies and proposes two primary mechanisms to achieve its goals:
The creation, under the auspices of U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”), of an “easy-to-access web portal to help stakeholders navigate and actively engage in international standardization efforts. The portal would include a list of relevant standards and information about how to participate in standardization activities related to AI and other CETs.”
The establishment by NIST “in coordination with the Secretary of State and the heads of such other Federal agencies as the Director [of NIST] considers appropriate” of a pilot program to award grants to host standards meetings in the United States.
The Act also requires the NIST to submit a report to Congress that identifies current U.S. participation in the development of such standards. Finally, the Act requires NIST’s Director jointly with the Secretary of State beginning after the third year of the program to report to Congress on the grant program and its effectiveness. The pilot program would end five years after the Act’s enactment but the Act provides a mechanism to determine, prior to that date, whether to make the program permanent.
Standards are strategically important to the United States and to the economic success of U.S. companies. I commend Senators Blackburn and Warner for recognizing the need to level the playing field by providing additional U.S. government support for the development of critical technical standards. I particularly like the idea of creating an “easy-to-access web portal” so that smaller stakeholders can more easily gain information about development efforts that might be important to them. At this stage, pretty much anything that increases transparency around standards is beneficial.
There are many other things the United States government could do to achieve these goals (see my post for examples: Input on the United States Government National Standards Strategy for CET - Part 2). But, this Act is an important first step towards achieving more transparent and open development of useful standards by lowering barriers for participation by U.S. companies and promoting U.S. participation in important standard development.
[1] A version of the Act, and a companion bill in the House, was introduced in 2024: S.3849 - 118th Congress (2023-2024): Promoting United States Leadership in Standards Act of 2024 | Congress.gov | Library of Congress.
[2] DCF7503C526767A5F65C72E8799A6E0A.promoting-united-states-leadership-in-standards-act-of-2024---one-pager-002-.pdf. See also, Blackburn, Warner Introduce Bill to Reestablish U.S. Leadership in International... and my post on Huawei and wireless standards which discusses some of the same issues: Convergence and Competition - A Tale of Two Standards Part 5: Huawei.