NSA tells lawmakers it is spending billions to test AI models

This high cost is intensifying the debate over who should bear the financial burden of AI safety reviews. While President Donald Trump has largely resisted calls for greater federal oversight, the NSA's spending highlights the expense of in-house government evaluation. Estimates for prior regulatory proposals, such as the AI Security and Innovation Act, were far lower, with the Congressional Budget Office estimating costs of roughly $20 million per year for a new center on AI risks. A separate House bill for AI reporting and tracking was estimated at $36 million over five years.

The primary costs for the NSA include purchasing expensive computing power to run models and hiring top AI engineers, whose salaries in the private sector can reach hundreds of millions of dollars. Some experts and tech leaders, including Elon Musk, suggest that frontier labs should review each other’s models or pay for independent audits to avoid placing the financial burden on taxpayers. Anthropic and OpenAI have indicated they may be open to paying for greater federal oversight.