AI IS OUT, ‘SUPER INTELLIGENCE’ IS IN: Trump Orders Federal Government to Rebrand Artificial Intelligence

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday directing the federal government to stop using the terms “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” and instead adopt “Super Intelligence” and “SI,” a sweeping terminology change the White House says better reflects the rapidly expanding capabilities of modern computing technology.

The September 29 order requires executive departments and agencies to use “Super Intelligence” in official correspondence, websites, policy documents and other non-statutory materials. Previously issued regulations, contracts, grants and presidential actions do not have to be rewritten.

Trump’s order argues that modern systems have advanced far beyond the concepts envisioned when researchers coined “artificial intelligence” roughly 70 years ago. The White House says today’s technology increasingly amplifies human creativity and scientific discovery instead of merely imitating discrete forms of human intelligence, making “Super Intelligence” a more appropriate description.

For now, however, the move is primarily one of federal terminology rather than a wholesale rewrite of existing law. The order says “Super Intelligence” will continue to mean technologies covered by the existing statutory definition of artificial intelligence. Trump directed his science and technology adviser to return within 60 days with proposed legislation creating a federal definition of SI and recommendations for conforming changes to existing law.

The White House is casting the change as part of a broader campaign to maintain American technological dominance. Administration officials point to Trump’s 2025 AI Action Plan, which included more than 90 federal initiatives, as well as more than $5 billion announced for the Genesis Mission, an effort to use advanced computing systems in science, medicine, energy and manufacturing.

The announcement comes with unusually direct implications for Nevada, where the infrastructure required to power the technology is already reshaping the state.

Nevada had approximately 70 data centers either operating, under construction or planned across Clark, Washoe, Elko, Lyon and Storey counties as of May, according to the Legislative Counsel Bureau. Many are concentrated around the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center, which has attracted companies including Google, Microsoft, Switch and other major technology operators. 

That expansion has created an enormous appetite for electricity. NV Energy projects data centers could grow from roughly 5 percent of its electricity sales today to 64 percent by 2046. The utility is seeking billions of dollars in transmission, substation and generation investments as it prepares for that growth.

Nevada regulators this month also approved two temporary natural-gas plants specifically intended to power Northern Nevada data centers after developers said demand was growing faster than NV Energy could provide permanent service.

So while Washington debates what to call the technology, Nevada is already confronting something considerably less theoretical: where to put the facilities that power it, how much electricity they will consume, and who ultimately pays for the infrastructure needed to keep the new era of “Super Intelligence” running.

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