// HACKER NEWS — CYBERSECURITY
Classified Estimates Show the NSA Is Paying Billions to Test AI Models
The price tag is significantly higher than previously known.
The NSA’s Artificial Intelligence Security Center has been testing frontier models to identify potential national security vulnerabilities.
T. Schneider/AP
September 24, 2026
12:22 p.m.
The National Security Agency told lawmakers that it is spending billions of dollars in taxpayer funds this year evaluating and testing advanced artificial intelligence models, according to two sources familiar with classified intelligence estimates.
The price tag — which is significantly greater than previously known — has led lawmakers to believe that a more comprehensive AI regulatory system could cost the government tens of billions of dollars per year, the sources said.
President Donald Trump has mostly resisted calls for greater federal oversight of AI, rejecting regulatory proposals from members of Congress and the frontier labs aimed at imposing new safeguards on the models. But after a string of high-profile hacking and security incidents, the NSA’s Artificial Intelligence Security Center began testing frontier models to identify potential national security vulnerabilities.
The high cost of those efforts is bringing new urgency to the debate about the government’s role in reviewing AI models designed by some of the most powerful and resourceful companies in the world. It also may intensify calls to have the frontier labs to shoulder the financial burden of reviewing the models, especially with spending set to only balloon as the technology grows more advanced.
Estimates of prior proposals to establish new federal AI regulatory oversight suggested a far lower price tag.
For instance, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the AI Security and Innovation Act, a bipartisan House proposal to establish a center on AI risks and “facilitate the mitigation of those risks,” would cost roughly $20 million per year.
A separate bill in the House to establish a new reporting and tracking system for AI calls for $36 million in total over the next five years, the CBO reported.