Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick Urges AI Leaders to Embrace Allies
Washington AI Network founder Tammy Haddad welcomed a sold-out audience of 300 top leaders from government, tech, and academia at the first AI Honors—Washington’s first official black-tie gala recognizing the promise, power, and people of artificial intelligence—at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington, DC. Following the presentation of eight awards, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, gave remarks and expanded on the announcement from the president earlier in the day creating the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI). The new Trump Administration’s initiative will support voluntary safety and technical standards for AI development, their goals for AI, safeguarding AI infrastructure from adversaries, securing semiconductor independence, expanding power for AI, reshoring advanced manufacturing with AI and robotics, and fixing the pharmaceutical supply chain.
“America must lead in AI, and that means embracing innovation while securing our infrastructure,” said Secretary Lutnick. “The new Center for AI Standards and Innovation will help ensure developers have clear, trusted guidelines—without unnecessary regulation—so we can stay ahead in the global AI race.”
Lutnick’s remarks outlined an “embrace your allies” approach to AI infrastructure, a push to reshore advanced manufacturing, plans to double U.S. power capacity for data centers, and a warning about supply chain vulnerabilities in both semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. He also issued a call to action to the leaders in the room, urging them to help drive a new era of American innovation: “We need to build and operate the greatest automation build in the history of modern mankind—and that is coming to America.”
Awards were presented by the evening’s MC, CNN anchor Sara Sidner, Representative Brendan Boyle, Fox News Jennifer Griffin, Amazon’s Olivia Igbokewe and AI AAlexander Hamilton. 2025 AI Honors Awardees are:
- Senator Todd Young (R-Ind.), Co-Chair, Senate AI Working Group — AI Impact in Governance Award
- Congressmen Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) & Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), Co-Chairs, House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence — Bipartisan Leadership on AI Award
- Vice Admiral Frank Whitworth, Director, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency — Guardian of America Award
- Jack Hidary, CEO, SandboxAQ — AI Visionary Award
- Patricia K. Falcone, Ph.D., Deputy Director for Science & Technology, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory — AI Honors in Public Science Award
- Father Paolo Benanti, Vatican Adviser on AI Ethics — Ethics in Artificial Intelligence Award
- Ylli Bajraktari, President & CEO, SCSP; Founder, AI + EXPO — American Competitiveness Award
- Joanna Guy, Chief Technologist, Booz Allen; Zane Price, Space Llama Engineer, Booz Allen; and Don Polaski, VP of AI, Booz Allen — Space Innovation Award
The event was emceed by CNN anchor Sara Sidner, with awards presented by Rep. Brendan Boyle, Fox News Chief National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin, and Olivia Igbokwe, Amazon’s Director of Federal Affairs for AWS.
The program included a few surprises, a video welcome from the leading tech podcaster Kara Swisher. Later in the evening AI Alexander Hamilton presented Congressmen Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) & Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), Co-Chairs, House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence — Bipartisan Leadership on AI Award. Hamilton was created by Paul Jaski and the Gemelo’s AI Video Engine. Gemelo.ai is launching this Fall in partnership with some of the biggest names and organizations in media, sports, and the public sector.
Watch the entire program on the Washington AI Network YouTube channel. Subscribe and watch here.
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