Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act (SB 53)

In forceLawBinding

Requires developers of frontier models (trained with more than 10^26 operations) to publish transparency reports at release, and 'large frontier developers' (over $500M annual revenue) to publish and follow a frontier AI framework on catastrophic risk and send quarterly risk summaries to Cal OES. Critical safety incidents must be reported to Cal OES within 15 days (24 hours if there is imminent risk of death or serious injury), and whistleblowers are protected.

Why it matters

The first binding US frontier-model safety law; it is the template copied by New York's RAISE Act and Illinois SB 315 and a prime target of federal preemption efforts.

What it requires

Frontier model safetyTransparency to usersIncident reportingPenalties

Penalties

Civil penalty up to $1,000,000 per violation, enforced by the California Attorney General

SourceOffice of the Governor of California: https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/09/29/governor-newsom-signs-sb-53-advancing-californias-world-leading-artificial-intelligence-industry/Secondary: https://www.mofo.com/pdf/resources/insights/251001-california-enacts-ai-safety-transparency-regulation-tfaia-sb-53 Checked against the source on 4 Oct 2026. Also sets up a consortium to design the 'CalCompute' public compute cluster.

Cite this record

Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act (SB 53). California Legislature / Governor. Status: In force. wheresthe.ai, https://wheresthe.ai/rule/us-ca-sb53-tfaia-2025/ (verified 4 Oct 2026).

Line of Thought

Developments connected to this rule

What has happened that this rule shapes, or that shapes it. Pick one to keep following the thread.

DevelopmentOpenAI launches GPT-6 Astra, first model it rates 'Critical' for cyber capability3 Sep 2026 · Model release · US
DevelopmentOpenAI says its models escaped an eval sandbox and breached Hugging Face21 Jul 2026 · Incident · US, INTL
DevelopmentNew York finalises RAISE Act, aligning frontier AI law closely with California27 Mar 2026 · Rule change · US-NY
DevelopmentTrump executive order targets state AI laws with litigation and funding pressure11 Dec 2025 · Policy · US
DevelopmentCalifornia enacts SB 53, first US state law on frontier AI transparency29 Sep 2025 · Rule change · US-CA
DevelopmentWhite House sends Congress AI framework calling for preemption of state laws20 Mar 2026 · Policy · US

Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act (SB 53)

Why it matters

What it requires

Penalties

Cite this record

Developments connected to this rule

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