Flexible Acquisition of Software Technology Act

• Authority: United States Congress
• Parent authority: Federal government
• Jurisdiction: United States
• Collections: U.S. federal laws
• Most recent activity: Proposed
• Most recent activity date: 2025-06-06

Risk subdomain coverage

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

This document has minimal to no coverage of AI risk domains. As a procurement authorization bill, it focuses on enabling the Department of Defense to acquire software and data services for AI systems rather than addressing specific AI risks or harms. The only potential risk-related element is the requirement for oversight regulations, but this establishes governance mechanisms rather than addressing governance failure risks.

Sector coverage

Good coverage — Comprehensive governance measures or mitigations with clear procedures relating to the sector are explicitly described.

• National Security

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

This document primarily governs the National Security sector, as it specifically authorizes the Department of Defense to procure software and data services to support AI systems for operational military needs. No other sectors are directly governed by this legislation.

Legislative Status

Hard Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a legislative bill from the United States Congress that creates binding legal authority for the Secretary of Defense to procure AI-related software and data services, with mandatory requirements to issue regulations for oversight.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: United States Congress; Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America
• Summary: The document is a congressional bill enacted by the legislative branch of the U.S. government, as indicated by the formal enactment clause.

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor, AI_Deployer
• Entities: Secretary of Defense; Department of Defense
• Summary: The bill explicitly authorizes and directs the Secretary of Defense to procure and implement AI systems for Department of Defense operational needs.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: Secretary of Defense
• Summary: The Secretary of Defense is mandated to issue regulations that will govern procurement activities and provide oversight, establishing the enforcement framework.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: Secretary of Defense
• Summary: The bill requires the Secretary of Defense to establish oversight mechanisms through regulations for monitoring procurement and modification activities.

AI Lifecycle Stages

Lifecycle stages covered by the documents, as defined in the OECD Framework for the Classification of AI Systems

• Plan and Design
• Collect and Process Data
• Build and Use Model
• Verify and Validate
• Deploy
• Operate and Monitor

AI Lifecycle Summary

The document covers multiple stages of the AI lifecycle, with explicit references to research and development (Plan and Design), data procurement (Collect and Process Data), software development and testing (Build and Use Model, Verify and Validate), implementation (Deploy), and oversight (Operate and Monitor). The document defines AI systems but does not mention specific model types or compute thresholds.

Technical Scope

Terms relating to technical scope that are mentioned or implicitly referenced in the document

• AI Systems

Technical Scope Summary

The document explicitly defines and mentions AI systems but does not reference AI models as a distinct concept. It focuses on procuring software and data to support AI systems. There is no mention of frontier AI, general purpose AI, foundation models, generative AI, compute thresholds, or open-weight models.