AI Transformation Brief 鈥� May 2025

Author(s): Bill Wong

The latest AI announcements from the US Department of Commerce, Saudi Arabia, the UK government, the Canadian federal government, NVIDIA, AMD, AWS, Microsoft, and Google as well as updates on AI risk management and AI agent technology.

INFO-TECH AI INSIGHTS

AI Transformation Brief

VOL 2 NO 5 | MAY 2025

Featuring AI best practices and insights to enable our members to strategize, plan, develop, deploy, manage, and govern AI-based technologies and solutions.

In This Issue 鈫� AI in the News | AI 91制片厂 Highlights | Vendor Spotlight | Upcoming Events & Resources

AI IN THE NEWS

US Department of Commerce rescinds the AI Diffusion Rule

On May 13, 2025, the Department of Commerce rescinded the previous administration鈥檚 regulation, known as the AI Diffusion Rule, that would have governed the distribution of advanced AI chip technology (e.g. NVDIA H100 chips), citing that these requirements would have stifled innovation.

ANALYST ANALYSIS

The AI Diffusion Rule was introduced by the previous administration on January 15, 2025, with compliance requirements that were set to come into effect on May 15, 2025. The regulation outlined a three-tier system:

Tier 1: Close US allies with minimal restrictions imposed.
Tier 2: Most other countries, facing certain limitations.
Tier 3: Adversarial countries with strict export controls imposed.

According to Bloomberg, the revocation of the Diffusion Rule enables the UAE to proceed with its plans to purchase 鈥渕ore than a million鈥� NVIDIA chips, whereas before, as a Tier 2 country, it faced limits on the number of AI chips it could procure.

This deal demonstrates how AI is being used as a geopolitical tool. In the coming months, the administration will develop a new regulatory framework that attempts to balance innovation, competition, and national security.

Microsoft adopts Google鈥檚 standard for linking up AI agents

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On May 7, 2025, Microsoft announced support for the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol. A2A enables structured agent communication by exchanging goals, managing state, initiating actions, and returning results in a secure manner.

ANALYST ANALYSIS

2025 is becoming the year for AI agents, with literally hundreds of vendors offering agentic AI applications. While the interest in AI agents is high, so are some of the challenges. One such challenge is the lack of standards in the AI agent ecosystem.

One of the first protocols introduced was the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which is an open standard for tool and data access. Introduced by Anthropic, this protocol is supported by hundreds of vendors, including OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and LangChain.

Microsoft鈥檚 support of the A2A protocol is welcome news. It joins a growing list of vendors supporting A2A that includes PayPal, Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow, UKG, and Workday.

Saudi Arabia鈥檚 bold bet on AI: The introduction of Humain

On May 12, 2025, the new AI firm Humain was created. This state-funded Saudi Arabian organization will be a key component of the government鈥檚 $100 billion Project Transcendence, which has a goal of placing the country on the list of the top 15 countries in AI by 2030.

Humain鈥檚 goals include the delivery of AI platforms focused on AI infrastructure, cloud, data and models, and applications.

ANALYST ANALYSIS

Within days of Humain鈥檚 introduction, major investments and partnerships were announced. A few notable announcements from major AI technology firms include:

NVIDIA to deploy 18,000 NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell AI supercomputer (Phase 1).

Google to invest $10 billion to construct an AI hub.

AMD and Humain to invest up to $10 billion to deploy 500 megawatts of AI compute capacity over the next five years.

AWS to invest $5 billion in AI infrastructure, AWS services, and AI training.

The establishment of Humain is key to the Saudi Arabia鈥檚 strategy for diversifying its oil-based economy. In addition to advancing its ambitious plans to become an AI superpower, Humain will also establish AI sovereignty locally and for the region.

Canada introduces its first AI minister

On May 13, 2025, Canada announced its first AI and Digital Innovation minister.

This welcome announcement demonstrates that AI has been prioritized as a cornerstone to Canada鈥檚 economic and technological future.

In addition, the prime minister has committed to deploy AI to make the government more efficient with the introduction of a dedicated office for digital transformation, and to build up AI capacity in the labor market.

ANALYST ANALYSIS

Canada was the first country to announce a national AI strategy and is well known around the world for its AI research, with thought leaders like Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio, and Richard Sutton. However, despite this recognition, critics would cite that Canada has fallen behind and that we are challenged when it comes to monetizing our AI investments.

As part of its election platform, the government promised to move fast on building data centers, introduce a tax credit to incentivize AI adoption by small and medium-sized businesses, and push to expand programs at Canada鈥檚 AI institutes to drive AI commercialization. The platform also committed to keep Canadian intellectual property in the country.

The new department and minister is a welcome change, and the minister will be challenged to improve the country鈥檚 ability to deliver on its AI commitments and to share the benefits of its AI investments across the country.

UK government to launch Consult, an AI tool that analyzes public consultations 1000x faster and 400x cheaper

On May 14, 2025, the UK government announced its findings with an internally developed AI tool, Consult. The tool was first used by the Scottish government when it was seeking perspectives on the regulation of nonsurgical cosmetic procedures such as lip filler. Consult reviewed more than 2,000 consultation responses and was able produce nearly identical results to a review by human officials.

ANALYST ANALYSIS

Scottish Public Health Minister Jenni Minto said, 鈥淯sing this tool has allowed the Scottish Government to move more quickly to a focus on the policy questions and dive into the detail of the evidence we鈥檝e been presented with, while remaining confident that we have heard the strong views expressed by respondents.鈥�

Across the 500 consultations the government runs annually, the tool could help save officials about 75,000 days of analysis every year, which costs the government 拢20 million in staffing costs.

Consult, which is still in its trial phase at this time, may be implemented in production later this year.