Trump launches ‘Tech Corps’ to boost U.S. influence

As competition with China intensifies, Washington is turning to a cornerstone of American soft power and diplomacy to expand its global influence in artificial intelligence: the Peace Corps. 

The White House on Friday announced the “Tech Corps” initiative within the Peace Corps aimed at promoting American AI abroad and helping partner nations adopt cutting-edge systems.

The Peace Corps is an independent U.S. government agency that sends American volunteers abroad to support local development projects, including in education, health, agriculture and economic growth.

The new Tech Corps will be structured similarly but will recruit, train, and deploy volunteers with tech skills, including engineers and graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to provide “last-mile” support for the implementation of American AI solutions abroad, particularly at the application layer.

A website for the Tech Corps has launched and is accepting applications, which it says will be accepted on a rolling basis.

In an announcement, the Peace Corps said that the AI solutions the new group implements would be put towards “real-world grassroots problems” in key sectors, including agriculture, education, health, and economic development.

Volunteers would be sent to countries participating in the American AI Exports Program, announced in July under a Trump administration executive order aimed at maintaining U.S. dominance in advanced technologies globally. 

The executive order aligns with broader U.S. efforts to counter the influence of Chinese technologies globally, including in developing nations.

Chinese firms have gained traction in some developing nations by offering open-source or open-weight models that are inexpensive, highly customizable, and able to run on local infrastructure — including Qwen3 and Deepseek.

While a full list of countries taking part in the AI Exports Program remains unclear, India is expected to be among them, with the Commerce Department welcoming its participation last week.

That statement had come ahead of the inaugural India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi, where Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, first announced the Tech Corps. 

India is also joining the U.S.-led Pax Silica initiative — a Trump administration effort aimed at securing the global supply chain for silicon-based technologies — alongside Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the Netherlands, Israel, the United Kingdom, Australia, Qatar and the UAE as core members.

At the summit, Kratsios argued that expanding access to U.S. AI technologies was central to closing the gap in global AI adoption between developed and developing economies. “Real AI sovereignty means owning and using best-in-class technology for the benefit of your people,” he said. 

AI sovereignty — which was a major topic at the Indian AI conference —…