GuShiio.com ① Trump and Musk have “cut jobs” in the U.S. federal government, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a subsidiary of the Department of Commerce, may lay off 500 people;
② The institute includes the Institute of Artificial Intelligence Security and the Office of Semiconductor Investment Supervision, both of which were important institutions in the Biden era;
③ The scope of layoffs has not yet been determined. Most of them will be employees on probation, but there are also important technical management personnel.
Financial Union, February 21 (Editor Ma Lan)Trump and Musk’s transformation of the U.S. federal government continues. According to sources, the fire has recently spread to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a subsidiary of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
NIST is a non-regulatory agency responsible for developing product safety standards in areas ranging from beauty products to quantum computers. Among them, chip semiconductors and artificial intelligence in the United States are also key areas of the agency’s work.
According to several current and former NIST employees, the agency has been preparing for layoffs. Last week, some NIST staff saw Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) entering its office building, which was seeking access to NIST’s communications systems.
According to reports, NIST issued a notice to some probationary employees on Wednesday, reminding them that they may soon receive termination notices. People familiar with the matter said that the agency has not yet made a final decision on the scope of the layoffs, but it expects to lay off as many as 500 people.
big move
Sources pointed out that most of NIST’s layoffs may be probationary employees who have recently joined the workforce, but may also affect technical experts in the leadership, including three laboratory directors who were promoted last year.
Among them, the American Institute for Artificial Intelligence Security is also a team in NIST. The institute was established in October 2023 due to former President Biden’s artificial intelligence executive order and has been working closely with American artificial intelligence companies, including DOGE Minister Musk’s xAI and its competitor OpenAI.
But in recent weeks, several senior NIST artificial intelligence leaders have left one after another, and Elizabeth Kelly, chief director of the Institute for Artificial Intelligence Security, also announced her departure earlier this month. Previously, Trump had withdrawn Biden’s executive order on artificial intelligence, saying the order hindered the development of artificial intelligence in the United States.
At the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit held in Paris last week, U.S. Vice President Vance also emphasized that the new administration plans to lower the priority of artificial intelligence security. No one attended the meeting at the Artificial Intelligence Security Institute.
In addition to artificial intelligence, NIST also includes the Office of Semiconductor Investment Regulation, which develops funding plans for the U.S. Chip Act and is responsible for implementing related initiatives.
A large proportion of the layoffs are likely to come from the office, and three-fifths of the team responsible for implementing the $39 billion manufacturing incentive project and two-thirds of the staff responsible for the $11 billion chip development project will be affected.
