Commerce Positions National AI Center as Gateway for Federal AI Adoption - MeriTalk

The Commerce Department is expanding the mission of its newly established National AI Center in San Francisco beyond supporting U.S. artificial intelligence (AI) exports. Now, it will also serve as a gateway connecting federal agencies with commercial AI technologies, according to Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Moksh Jawa.

Speaking on July 30 at the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Federal Emerging Technology Showcase in Washington, D.C., Jawa said the inspiration for the center came out of President Donald Trump’s July 2025 executive order that established the American AI Exports Program.

“The center was opened in March with a focus on being a standing ground initially just for rolling out the American AI Exports Program, but now, we’re hyper-focused on also enabling American AI companies to work directly with government,” Jawa said.

The CTO added that it was an intentional decision to establish the center in San Francisco, where Commerce could work very closely with the top AI companies and partner with them to export American AI.

“By setting up an outpost in San Francisco, we want that to be a top-of-funnel or evaluative office that can be used to enable those relationships,” Jawa said.

“Naturally, that brings us very quickly to GSA, which is our [U.S. government expert] in evaluating such technology and all things procurement,” he added. “So, we’re very excited to partner with GSA on spinning up some of that functionality out of the National AI Center.”

The Commerce Department’s vision aligns with a broader government-wide effort to modernize how agencies evaluate and acquire emerging technologies.

During a separate panel discussion at the GSA event, Federal Chief Information Officer Greg Barbaccia said agencies need quicker ways to test new technologies than the current lengthy procurement process allows.

“We’re talking a lot about how do we bridge that gap with something the private sector would call an incubator,” Barbaccia said.

“When you have people who are interested, we need a better way to deploy technology faster before it goes to a year-long procurement exercise,” Barbaccia added.