Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2667 actions· ✨ 89 recent

The Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration published a Federal Register notice on 10 April 2026 (91 FR 18412, doc 2026-06952) opening the inaugural Call for Proposals for the American AI Exports Program established under Executive Order 14320. Proposals are accepted from 1 April 2026 through 5:00 pm EDT on 30 June 2026 from US industry-led "pre-set" consortia offering full-stack American AI export packages — AI-optimised hardware, data pipelines, AI models and systems, security and cybersecurity measures, and sector-specific applications — for presentation by the US government to foreign public- and private-sector buyers. Designated consortia receive priority US-government advocacy, priority consideration for export-control licence engagement, interagency coordination, and federal-financing referrals (EXIM, DFC), with a 14-business-day completeness review and 60-calendar-day designation decision once a proposal is deemed complete.

The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) entered into an $11,485,352 settlement with IPI Partners, LLC — a US private-equity data-center fund manager (~$10.5bn AUM) — to resolve 51 apparent violations of the Ukraine-/Russia-Related Sanctions Regulations between July 2018 and June 2022. IPI solicited and accepted two $25 million fund subscriptions in September 2017 and March 2018 from Definition Services, Inc. — a British Virgin Islands entity ultimately owned by Heritage Trust, a Delaware family trust established by sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov — and continued processing 18 capital calls, 20 distributions, and 13 management-fee payments for four years after Kerimov's April 2018 SDN designation. OFAC simultaneously issued an unusually direct sectoral warning to the private-equity industry, marking the first major OFAC enforcement against a US PE-fund administrator in the data-center / AI-infrastructure segment and the second Kerimov-linked PE/VC settlement of 2025 (after the June 2025 $216M GVA Capital statutory-maximum penalty).

The Bureau of Industry and Security signed an Interim Final Rule on 13 January 2025 (90 FR 4544, published 15 January 2025) introducing the first horizontal export-control regime for advanced AI compute and closed-weight model weights. It revised ECCN 3A090 advanced-IC thresholds, created a new ECCN 4E091 covering closed-weight model weights trained on more than 10^26 operations, and bucketed every destination worldwide into a three-tier country group: Tier 1 (~18 close allies, license-free flows), Tier 2 (the rest of the world, per-country compute caps with National VEU and Universal VEU pathways), Tier 3 (US arms-embargoed destinations including China and Russia under comprehensive denial). It added license exceptions AIA, ACM, and LPP and set staggered compliance dates of 15 May 2025 (general) and 15 January 2026 (data-center / model-weight provisions). The Trump administration's BIS rescinded the rule on 13 May 2025 — two days before the primary compliance date — but it was on the books for four months and shaped allied compliance build-out and the architecture of subsequent US AI export controls.

The US Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) published an interim final rule (89 FR 80064; FR doc 2024-22587) amending the Export Administration Regulations (15 CFR 748.15) to expand the Validated End User (VEU) program with a new "Data Center VEU Authorization" pathway. The rule lets BIS pre-authorize specified data-center operators in third countries to receive advanced computing integrated circuits (ECCNs 3A090, 4A090 and related) and related technology without individual export licenses, conditional on vetted security plans, end-use monitoring, and reporting. Country Group D:5 destinations — China, Russia, Iran, Belarus, Venezuela, Cuba and 17 other arms-embargoed states — are categorically excluded. Eligible destinations include Egypt, Laos, Moldova, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, and the UAE — extending the US chip-equipment perimeter into a managed trusted-data-center channel for Gulf, MENA, and Central Asian AI build-out.

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation approved up to USD 18.3 million in EDGE (Economic Development for a Growing Economy) payroll-based tax credits for Amazon Data Services Inc., tied to Amazon Web Services' USD 11 billion data center campus at the Indiana Enterprise Center in New Carlisle, St. Joseph County. The credit was one component of a larger state incentive package announced by Governor Eric Holcomb on 2024-04-25, which also included up to USD 55 million in Hoosier Business Investment tax credits, up to USD 20 million in redevelopment tax credits, up to USD 5 million in training grants, a USD 7 million road-infrastructure contribution, and a 50-year state sales-tax exemption on data center equipment. IEDC records cite an incentive-agreement effective date of 2023-09-01. The project committed to creating at least 1,000 new jobs.

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation approved up to USD 55 million in Hoosier Business Investment (HBI) tax credits for Amazon Data Services Inc., tied to Amazon Web Services' USD 11 billion data center campus at the Indiana Enterprise Center in New Carlisle, St. Joseph County. This is the largest single instrument in the five-part state incentive package Governor Eric Holcomb announced on 2024-04-25, which also included up to USD 18.3 million in EDGE payroll tax credits, up to USD 20 million in redevelopment tax credits, up to USD 5 million in training grants, a USD 7 million road-infrastructure contribution, and a 50-year state sales-tax exemption on data center equipment. IEDC describes all incentives as performance-based, claimable only once the underlying investment and job-creation commitments are verified. IEDC records cite an incentive-agreement effective date of 2023-09-01.

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation approved up to USD 20 million in redevelopment tax credits for Amazon Data Services Inc., tied to Amazon Web Services' USD 11 billion data center campus at the Indiana Enterprise Center in New Carlisle, St. Joseph County. This is the third of five distinct incentive instruments in the state package Governor Eric Holcomb announced on 2024-04-25, alongside up to USD 18.3 million in EDGE payroll tax credits, up to USD 55 million in Hoosier Business Investment tax credits, up to USD 5 million in training grants, a USD 7 million road-infrastructure contribution, and a 50-year state sales-tax exemption on data center equipment. IEDC records cite an incentive-agreement effective date of 2023-09-01.