New York became the first U.S. state to launch its own program for independently testing advanced AI systems, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Tuesday, positioning the state ahead of a looming registration deadline for large AI developers and a stalled federal push for AI safety rules.
The work will be carried out by the New York Center for AI Responsibility and Research at Binghamton University, drawing on more than 80 New York-based scientists and researchers and running on computing power from the state's Empire AI initiative. The center's mandate is to evaluate advanced AI systems for risk, feed that evidence to state policymakers, and separately study responsible uses of AI in medicine and scientific research.
A Built-In Limit
The program's central constraint is that reviewers can only examine what AI companies choose to make public. Models that remain in internal development at firms like OpenAI, Google or Anthropic stay out of reach, meaning the center's findings will necessarily lag behind what any single company knows about its own systems.
Coverage of the announcement ties it directly to New York's RAISE Act, which requires large AI developers to register with the state by January 1, 2027, and to Bloomberg Government's reporting that Hochul is framing the initiative as a way for New York to lead on AI safety while comprehensive federal legislation remains stuck in Congress. One outlet reported a $30 million gift from Bloomberg LP founder Tom Secunda plus $25 million from the State University of New York system and the state budget, though that funding breakdown could not be independently confirmed in other coverage of the launch. A separate newsroom's account of the launch digs further into how the RAISE Act's registration requirement will actually work for the AI companies now racing to comply with it.
