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The Trump administration launched a new initiative Monday aimed at recruiting top-tier technical talent to accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) at the federal level.
The hiring program, known as “Tech Force,” plans to recruit roughly 1,000 early-career technologists for a two-year service term across various federal agencies.
“The main objective of this program is there’s a ton of technology modernization work that needs to get done across pretty much every agency in the government,” Scott Kupor, director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), told Fox News Digital on Monday.
The initiative was announced four days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order outlining a national policy framework designed to strengthen U.S. leadership in AI.
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“President Trump has made clear that securing America’s leadership in AI is the paramount national challenge of this generation,” the OPM said in a press release. “The president’s AI Action Plan focuses on unleashing private sector innovation while also recognizing the federal government must have the technical talent to lead in technology modernization.
Recruits can be placed at agencies such as Departments of War, State, Homeland Security or Health and Human Services, where they would work on AI implementation, software development, data modernization and generally move federal operations off aging systems.
The new program has partnered with more than 25 leading technology companies to help guide government modernization efforts. Those private-sector partners include Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon Web Services, Google Public Sector, Uber, Zoom, Adobe, NVIDIA, Dell Technologies and Palantir.
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Recruits can expect annual salaries ranging from $150,000 to $200,000, Communications Head McLaurine Pinover told Fox News Digital. Participants will also gain substantial career development opportunities spanning both the public and private sectors, Kupor added.
“At the end of the program, we’re also going to run a very, very comprehensive job fair with all those private companies coming to meet all these thousand engineers and give them the opportunity if they decide they want to go into the private sector,” Kupor said. “We’re trying to demonstrate that people can come to government, even for a short period of time, even for two years, do great work, and ultimately, that work will present tremendous career opportunities for them.”
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The initiative is primarily designed to increase the number of early-career professionals, those with five to seven years of work experience or less, in the federal government, Kupor said. He noted that while roughly 22 percent of the private-sector workforce is made up of early-career employees, that figure is closer to 7 percent in government. Once participants complete their two-year term, they can choose to remain in government or pursue career opportunities elsewhere, he said.
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