California state senator Steve Padilla has introduced two bills, SB 892 and SB 893, aimed at regulating AI systems used by state agencies. SB 892 requires the development of safety, privacy, and non-discrimination standards for AI services and prohibits the state from contracting any AI services that don’t meet these standards. SB 893 would establish a California AI research hub for academic use, providing access to compute resources and data. These bills follow an earlier proposal by Senator Scott Wiener and are part of a broader trend of state-level AI regulation across the United States.