Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management and vice chair of the superintelligence task force, said the US is winning in superintelligence and must continue to do so responsibly. He outlined that industry bears responsibility for safe releases, with an ongoing notification program to keep government informed, and that critical infrastructure, financial services, energy, and oil and gas companies need coordination. Kupor said independent auditors will report to boards with fiduciary duties, but the government also needs oversight and enforcement mechanisms. On data center water and energy concerns, he called them the easy part, saying companies should just resolve local issues directly rather than debate. He argued the technology can evolve safely, citing Nvidia's open-source software to prevent jailbreaks, and rejected a pause, noting adversaries would continue advancing. He declined to ascribe motivations to industry figures like Dario, Sam, Elon, Jensen, or David Sacks, but said existing laws should prohibit harmful products and the government must coalesce views to protect Americans.
Key takeaways
Kupor said the US is winning in superintelligence and must continue to do so responsibly.
Kupor called data center water and energy concerns the easy part, saying companies should just resolve them locally.
Kupor declined to ascribe motivations to industry figures like Dario, Sam, Elon, Jensen, or David Sacks.
Numbers and commitments
Figure
What it refers to
Type
At
120 days
Timeline for the superintelligence task force report
7:05Why, you know, how could one side think one thing and the other side thinks something so diametrically different and they happen to be in the same business?
Newly formed superintelligence task force is preparing a report on risks, opportunities, and the government's responsibility when managing SI. Joining us now is Scott Kupor. He is the director of the Office of Personnel Management, vice chair of the superintelligence task force. Scott, always good to see you. I'm reading what you have to do here. You have to keep the US ahead while making sure safety, energy, and security risks are all under control. How does that sound? Does that sound right? It sounds hard. It sounds great. I wish you could just say make this, you know, Mr. What did Star Trek number two? Make it make it so. I wish you could make it so, but how will you go about doing it in 120 days?
Yeah. Well, thanks Joe and yeah, you're exactly right, which is look, that's the goal is to make sure that we continue to win, which we are winning, and ensure that we do so responsibly. So, I think what you're going to see from us are a couple things. One is, and I just saw the last segment you guys did. There's a lot of what I would call work on behalf of the industry that needs to happen. So, we've been very clear from the beginning and you'll see us continue to follow up. The industry bears a lot of responsibility here to make sure that when they release things, they're safe, they're appropriately vetted, when things go wrong. You're going to see us make sure that there's a very, very appropriate kind of ongoing notification program. So that the government has all the information they need. We're also going to make sure that all the major players outside of technology. So critical infrastructure, financial services, energy, oil and gas, all these companies have the appropriate information they need to make sure that they've got plans in place and that we've got coordination across things. So and the final thing you'll see us do is look, there is a whole set of laws that the president has mentioned, you know, product liability laws, principal agent laws, all these things that really govern corporate responsibility in these areas. I think you're going to see also kind of a much greater articulation of that and an indication among the companies that the government has a very clear expectation of their responsibility here.
I mean as far as enforcement people want a third party, that this has been I think something that everyone's talked about third party security auditors and that's going to be part of this and they're going to report to the company's board and then if the board doesn't do anything they're liable. So is that the enforcement mechanism?
No. Well, that's not the only enforcement mechanism, but you're right, that was with a pact that was signed I guess a week ago, Tuesday now with the various players. And you're exactly right, which is look, these are independent auditors. They will report to the board and all the traditional fiduciary duties and corporate responsibilities will attach to that. But there's also got to be a mechanism whereby the government actually has insight into that and appropriate oversight. So we're not just going to sit around and wait for the companies to tell us they've done their work. I think you should expect also the government should have a role there in making sure that what the companies say they do they do and that appropriate mechanism for enforcement we think on our end.
How are you going to manage some of the downsides that we hear just from data centers? I mean at this point in terms of water usage does a closed system take care of that? Do the new chips require less so that that becomes a moot point or is it something you have to think about all the time and energy usage?
Yeah. No, look, I think you're right. Look, water and energy and we've seen this already even in the data that's come out. So, there's no question that whatever concerns that traditionally there were on energy usage, water uses, all those are going in the right direction, meaning the technology continues to improve and will reduce those. But Joe, to be completely honest, I think this is the most kind of easy part of the problem to solve, which is the players in this space should just go into those local communities and say, "Look, we don't need to debate whether water's going to get better or energy is going to get better. We should just take care of that." So, there's plenty of opportunity for them to say, "Hey, look, if you're concerned about rate rises, that we'll take care of those. If you're concerned about electricity, we can either bring our own or again, we can take care of those rates." We don't need to debate these topics. And I imagine no average American is going to read the studies on water usage. So, let's just take these things off the table. We've been very clear with the industry on this as well that we think this is a much easier problem to solve. They should just go in and resolve these issues. But yes, absolutely the technology will take care of these problems over time, but in the meantime, there's a much more simple way to do this and that is that the company should just go in and make sure that those concerns just get taken right off the table.
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Kupor, S. (2026, October 13). Director Scott Kupor joined Squawk Box on CNBC to discuss the Super Intelligence Force [Interview transcript]. U.S. Office of Personnel Management. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3052330/
MLA
Scott Kupor. "Director Scott Kupor joined Squawk Box on CNBC to discuss the Super Intelligence Force." U.S. Office of Personnel Management, 13 Oct. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3052330/.
BibTeX
@misc{kupor2026_3052330,
author = {Scott Kupor},
title = {Director Scott Kupor joined Squawk Box on CNBC to discuss the Super Intelligence Force},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, U.S. Office of Personnel Management. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {oct},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3052330/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
