As part of the initiative, government agencies will bring together an initial cohort of 1,000 early career technologists who will be assigned to government agencies to work on one- or two-year fellowships. OPM aims to place approximately 30 to 40 Tech Force Fellows in most large agencies.
In addition, the government will also hire a total of 500 project management and data science fellows this coming spring, as well as 200 unpaid student interns studying in technology programs under the “Service Semester” volunteer program.
“U.S. Tech Force fellows will gain unique skills and experience working on critical, high-impact projects, giving fellows the opportunity to implement and deploy technology at a scale they cannot do in the private sector,” the Office of Personnel Management said in a memo.
Applications are open and being accepted on a rolling basis. For those who are successful in achieving this, the expected salary range given is $150,000 to $200,00. There is a long list of federal agencies participating, with the initial list including the Departments of Defense, Treasury, State, Labor, Commerce, Energy, Transportation, Homeland Security, and others.
According to CNN, the fellows will work on projects such as creating AI-integrated drones and weapons, incorporating AI into intelligence practices, and building the platform used for Trump accounts.
The initiative is meant to address the skills gap and boost AI adoption in the federal workforce and is part of Trump’s “AI Action Plan”, which the administration announced in July with the stated aim of defeating China in the global AI race.
“The tech force will accelerate the use of AI to make our government more responsive and efficient,” the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy wrote in an X post on Monday.
The early career program also comes at a time when young graduates are facing one of the toughest job markets in years, and AI is widely considered a factor in that equation.
Like many other Trump-era AI programs, the private sector is deeply embedded in it. The program seeks to hire experienced technologists directly from the private sector to lead early career fellows, and several technology companies are joining to support the initiative with technical training. The initial lineup includes Nvidia, OpenAI, Adobe, Amazon Web Services, Apple, Coinbase, Google Public Sector, Robinhood, IBM, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, Palantir, Uber, XAI and more, the list is sure to expand.
“Sharing the elite tech talent is another way Amazon is helping advance American AI leadership,” Dave Levy, AWS vice president of worldwide public sector, said in the announcement.
Sharing talent between the private and public sectors to enhance AI is an unusual step but not for Trump 2.0. Several high-ranking officials in Trump’s administration came directly from the private sector, including his “AI and crypto czar” David Sachs, a venture capitalist who was embroiled in controversy last month over conflicts of interest arising from several of his technology investments. Sachs will be one of the government officials leading the Tech Force program.
The President has also appointed Elon Musk to lead the Department for Government Efficiency, a now-defunct “agency.” Then in June, four Silicon Valley executives — Palantir CTO Shyam Shankar, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth, OpenAI chief product officer Kevin Weil and Thinking Machines Lab consultant Bob McGrew — joined the Army Reserve as direct-commissioned officers.
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