evaluator; distance from a lab: unattributed
US CAISI (NIST)
Scorecard
Pre-deployment agreements with five labs; 40+ evaluations; some classified via TRAINS taskforce.
Government, Gaithersburg, US. Confidence high. Domains: cyber, bio, misuse, assurance. Scores by preset: Lab procurement 60; Regulator or auditor 60; Public trust 60; Equal weights 60. Weakest dimension: publication rights 1/4.
What would move the score. Regular public reporting per model and a standing budget line insulated from reorganization.
Funding 3/4
Mostly philanthropic or public money; some lab-linked pooled funds.
evidence: tier 3 (self)
Anchor 3 pending a confirmed bounded negative (appropriations text); access from labs is in-kind.
- Public funding; formal access agreements with five developers.
CAISI Frontier Testing Agreements Reach Five Labs (Cloud Security Alliance, 2026-05-20) tier 4 pressunaudited Center for AI Standards and Innovation (NIST, 2026-08-08) tier 3 selfconfirmed2026-09-14 - Public appropriation of about $10M in FY2026; free pre-deployment access from labs is in-kind. No confirmed primary-filing negative on lab money is on file.
Funding for CAISI (Institute for Progress, 2026) tier 4 pressconfirmed Center for AI Standards and Innovation (NIST, 2026-08-08) tier 3 selfconfirmed2026-09-14 - Open: Add a confirmed bounded negative from a primary source to restore anchor 4.
Governance 3/4
Nonprofit or public body with a COI policy.
evidence: tier 2 (ledger)
Anchor 3 on governance given the cited signals.
- Refocused in 2025 from broad safety research to demonstrable national-security risks; mandate is politically steerable.
CAISI Frontier Testing Agreements Reach Five Labs (Cloud Security Alliance, 2026-05-20) tier 4 pressunaudited2026-09-14 - Appropriation of about $10M in FY2026 within NIST's AI line; the director resigned in July 2026 and the NIST director is acting head.
Funding for CAISI (Institute for Progress, 2026) tier 4 pressconfirmed evaluators.csv (24 evaluators: Coefficient and SFF totals, lab money, government contracts, leadership) (Kevin Bass (GitHub), 2026-09-14) tier 2 ledgerunverifiable2026-09-14 - The CAISI director resigned on 20 July 2026, three months after appointment — the third leadership change in six months.
What Will It Cost for the US to Be Ready for the Next Big AI Breakthrough? (Institute for Progress, 2026) tier 4 pressconfirmed Trump's head of AI safety agency CAISI resigns after months on job (CNBC, 2026-07-20) tier 4 pressconfirmed2026-07-20
Personnel 3/4
Recusal policy and disclosure of lab ties.
evidence: tier 3 (self)
Anchor 3 on personnel given the cited signals.
- Authorized Scale AI, a company 49% owned by Meta, to run evaluations on its behalf.
Why the U.S. Needs an Independent AI Evaluation Framework for National Security (Scale AI, 2026-05-20) tier 3 selfconfirmed Third-Party Model Auditing (Longterm Wiki, 2026-01-29) tier 4 pressconfirmed2026-09-14
Access depth (lab-granted) 3/4
Helpful-only or weights-level access, chain of thought, logs, on-site.
evidence: tier 4 (press)
Anchor 3 on access given the cited signals.
- More than 40 evaluations including unreleased models; classified CBRN and cyber work via the TRAINS taskforce.
CAISI Frontier Testing Agreements Reach Five Labs (Cloud Security Alliance, 2026-05-20) tier 4 pressunaudited2026-09-14 - Five labs now give CAISI pre-deployment access (OpenAI and Anthropic since September 2025; Google DeepMind, Microsoft and xAI from 5 May 2026), including versions with guardrails stripped back; more than 40 evaluations completed, one of a foreign model without developer cooperation.
CAISI Frontier Testing Agreements Reach Five Labs (Cloud Security Alliance (research note), 2026-05-05) tier 4 pressconfirmed2026-05-05
Scope control 3/4
Evaluator sets scope and can add questions.
evidence: tier 3 (self)
Anchor 3 on scope given the cited signals.
- Government defines risk domains.
Why the U.S. Needs an Independent AI Evaluation Framework for National Security (Scale AI, 2026-05-20) tier 3 selfconfirmed2026-09-14 - Participation is voluntary and agreements were jointly scoped with the two founding labs; the center can only assess models developers choose to share.
CAISI Frontier Testing Agreements Reach Five Labs (Cloud Security Alliance (research note), 2026-05-05) tier 4 pressconfirmed2026-05-05
Publication rights 1/4
Lab-edited summaries only.
evidence: tier 4 (press)
Anchor 1 on publication given the cited signals.
- Publishes little per model; findings mostly stay inside government.
CAISI Frontier Testing Agreements Reach Five Labs (Cloud Security Alliance, 2026-05-20) tier 4 pressunaudited2026-09-14
Method transparency 2/4
Methods described in prose.
evidence: tier 3 (self)
Anchor 2 on methods given the cited signals.
- Methods partly published through NIST; per-evaluation methods not public.
Center for AI Standards and Innovation (NIST, 2026-08-08) tier 3 selfconfirmed2026-09-14
Role incompatibility 4/4
No commercial products.
evidence: tier 3 (self)
Anchor 4 on products given the cited signals.
- No commercial products.
Center for AI Standards and Innovation (NIST, 2026-08-08) tier 3 selfconfirmed2026-09-14
Traced money and ties
public: 2 rows (grant $25.0M). Confirmed rows: 1 of 2. Dollar sums: confirmed + unaudited USD rows only; imported figures are not re-derived and never summed. Second hop traced for 1 of 1 sources. Ties: none within two steps recorded. Bounded negatives on file: 2.
Ledger
Money in
- T47 from US government (NIST appropriations): grant $10.00M, FY2026. appropriation within the NIST AI line confirmedtier 4 presshttps://ifp.org/funding-for-caisi/
- T79 from US government (NIST appropriations): grant $15.00M, FY2026. about $15M available: $10M appropriated plus a Technology Modernization Fund loan unauditedtier 4 presshttps://ifp.org/funding-for-caisi/
Bounded negatives
- N09 no grant from Coefficient Giving in its index [Coefficient grants index, 2,911 rows, snapshot 2026-09-11] importedhttps://coefficientgiving.org/grants/
- N18 no CAISI contract to METR, Apollo, or other private evaluators found [CAISI announcements and spending search, snapshot 2026-09-14] importedhttps://www.nist.gov/caisi
One hop away
Funding graph, focused
Neighbours at full strength, everything else faded. Hover any name to move the focus; click a name to open its page.