International Trade Administration (ITA) Deputy Assistant Secretary for Manufacturing Industry and Analysis Heather Evans said today that one of the biggest obstacles the private sector has when it comes to leveraging advanced technologies in manufacturing is “a lack of certainty around regulation.”
“The Europeans have already passed their AI Act … [and] some of the questions people have [are], ‘How does this change how I’m already putting my product into market?’ and ‘What additional or different requirements will there be,’” Evans said during a Brookings Institute event on July 15. “At ITA, we work really closely with all these other partners and allies on making sure … there’s some attempt at harmonizing these approaches so that we don’t end up siloing what needs to be something that’s available broadly.”
In her engagement with private sector companies across the manufacturing industry, Evans said she sees AI “being discussed everywhere.”
“A lot of what my team is doing is engaging with our counterparts and how other countries are thinking about regulation,” Evans said. “We want to make sure we’re putting all those [guardrails] in place.”
“A lot of what we do is trying to understand where those are being developed, and how we can shine light on potential pain points that the private sector is going to have and try to make that work for everyone,” she added.
Evans highlighted that manufacturing in the U.S. is going through a “renaissance” right now.
“There’s an unprecedented amount of resources and a new perspective on the government spending money to advance certain technologies,” Evans said. Specifically, she highlighted the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act.
The ITA official also singled out some key tech programs she believes are helping to advance AI and manufacturing in the U.S. – including the Manufacturing Extension Partnership and the Economic Development Administration’s tech hubs.
“Funding for those programs is going to be really important to achieving any of this growth and distributing that across the country,” Evans said.
