Chris Fall, director of the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI), has resigned, according to the agency. Fall had led the organization for just three months after being appointed following the abrupt departure of predecessor Collin Burns, who reportedly left after less than a week amid tensions between the Trump administration and Anthropic. No reason was given for Fall’s resignation. Prior to joining CAISI, Fall served as director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science and held roles within DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy and Office of Naval Research.
CAISI, which operates under the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is responsible for developing technical standards and evaluation methods for AI models, including cybersecurity risk assessments. The agency was not directly involved in the recent controversy over Anthropic’s Mythos and Fable models, which were briefly pulled from the market in June under a Commerce Department export directive before being reinstated after Secretary Howard Lutnickexpressed satisfaction with Anthropic’s safety measures.
Fall’s departure comes amid broader debate over AI regulation, including renewed discussion following the release of a competitive open-weight model from Chinese lab Moonshot, and calls from Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis for an independent, industry-run AI standards body. CAISI was notably absent from the administration’s recently announced “Gold Eagle” cybersecurity coordination initiative.
