Right to Compute Act (SB 212, 2025)

Summary

Protects the private ownership and use of computational resources for lawful purposes: government actions restricting them must be demonstrably necessary and narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest, which includes making AI-controlled critical infrastructure facilities adopt a risk management policy. Under section 2-10-205 the deployer of a critical AI system (one that makes, or is a substantial factor in making, consequential decisions) controlling critical infrastructure facilities must develop a reasonable risk management policy after deployment, considering the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, the ISO/IEC AI standard or another recognised framework.

Safety topics

Scope

Borderline scope Existing scope note kept: mainly a right-to-compute law with one AI critical-infrastructure duty.

Status notes

Signed by the Governor on 16 Apr 2025 and effective immediately; chapter number 150 was assigned on 17 Apr 2025. The bill's short title still speaks of 'requiring shutdowns of AI controlled critical infrastructure', but the enacted act's title and codified sections require a risk management policy instead and contain no shutdown mandate. Section 2-10-205 names the standard as 'the ISO/IEC 4200 artificial intelligence standard', and a plan prepared under federal requirements counts as compliance. Besides AI-controlled critical infrastructure, the compelling government interests listed in the definitions include addressing deception and fraud, protecting individuals, especially minors, from knowingly distributed deepfakes and other harmful synthetic content, and abating nuisances created by datacenter infrastructure. Critical AI excludes systems for narrow procedural or preparatory tasks, common software such as antivirus or spreadsheets, and conversational tools subject to an acceptable use policy that prohibits unlawful content. The act does not alter intellectual-property rights and remedies or preempt federal law.

Sources

Open the official source https://mca.legmt.gov/bills/mca/title_0020/chapter_0100/part_0020/section_0050/0020-0100-0020-0050.html

Secondary source: https://mca.legmt.gov/bills/mca/title_0020/chapter_0100/part_0020/section_0030/0020-0100-0020-0030.html

Local copy

Verification

History

1. 2026-10-18scope_note: Mainly limits the regulation of computing; included for its one critical-infrast → Existing scope note kept: mainly a right-to-compute law with one AI critical-inf — pipeline run 2026-10-18-recheck-americas-1 (recheck), candidate US-MT-012026-10-18-recheck-americas-1 · Claude Code (claude-opus-5-5)
2. 2026-10-18notes: The introduced bill's title referred to requiring shutdowns of AI-controlled cri → Signed by the Governor on 16 Apr 2025 and effective immediately; chapter number — rewritten from the stored files: signing and chapter dates now rest on the stored Capitol Tracker page, the effective date on the Legislative Review; the remark that the act's text 'was not checked' and the attribution to the tracker moved to verification.note; definitions, exclusions, intellectual property and preemption added2026-10-18-recheck-americas-1 · Claude Code (claude-opus-5-5)
3. 2026-10-18summary: Declares a right to own and use computational resources, so that government rest → Protects the private ownership and use of computational resources for lawful pur — rewritten: the codified text names 'the ISO/IEC 4200 artificial intelligence standard', not ISO/IEC 42001, so the summary says 'the ISO/IEC AI standard' and notes quote the text; the right to compute is described from section 2-10-204 and the definition of critical AI added; intellectual property and federal preemption moved to notes for length2026-10-18-recheck-americas-1 · Claude Code (claude-opus-5-5)
4. 2026-10-18date_in_force: – → 2025-04-16 — set to 16 Apr 2025: the Legislative Review lists Chapter 150 (SB 212) with 'an immediate effective date' and gives 04/16/2025 in its table of effective dates by chapter number2026-10-18-recheck-americas-1 · Claude Code (claude-opus-5-5)
5. 2026-10-14scope_note: – → Mainly limits the regulation of computing; included for its one critical-infrast — borderline under the include-and-flag rules of issue #22026-10-14-issue-2-scope-notes · Claude Code (claude-opus-5-5)
6. 2026-10-14notes: The introduced bill's title referred to requiring shutdowns of AI-controlled cri → The introduced bill's title referred to requiring shutdowns of AI-controlled cri — scope caveat moved to scope_note2026-10-14-issue-2-scope-notes · Claude Code (claude-opus-5-5)

Related records

NIST AI RMF United States · Published (non-binding, current)

Citation

Montana Legislature (69th Legislature, 2025; sponsor Sen. Daniel Zolnikov); signed by Governor Greg Gianforte. Right to Compute Act (SB 212, 2025) [Chapter 150, Laws of 2025 (SB 212); Mont. Code Ann. §§ 2-10-201 to 2-10-207]. 2025-04-16. https://mca.legmt.gov/bills/mca/title_0020/chapter_0100/part_0020/section_0050/0020-0100-0020-0050.html. Status: In force; verified 2026-10-18 (level A). Local copy archive/US-MT-01/2026-10-11/official.html retrieved 2026-10-11 19:38:56 UTC, SHA-256 7493410a9f13dff11db19e33c1f7db8693f54b5aa046d59528541188e18f19f9. Every AI Policy Ever, version 1.18 (snapshot 2026-10-18), record US-MT-01.

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