# California SB 53: Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act

- **Record type**: Policy instrument
- **Jurisdiction**: California (United States)
- **Instrument type**: Act / statute
- **Status**: In force
- **Binding**: Yes
- **Issuing body**: California State Legislature
- **Adopted**: 2025-09-29
- **Published**: 2025-09-29
- **In force**: 2026-01-01
- **Applies from**: 2026-01-01

## In brief

The California SB 53 is a binding act of California (United States), issued by California State Legislature. It has been in force since 1 January 2026. Applies to developers of frontier models meeting compute-based thresholds, with heightened duties for large frontier developers above a revenue threshold. 5 obligations are recorded against it, each with its source reference.

## Summary

SB 53 requires "large frontier developers" (developers of the most compute-intensive models above statutory thresholds) to publish a frontier AI framework describing how they assess and mitigate catastrophic risks, publish transparency reports when deploying new frontier models, report critical safety incidents to the California Office of Emergency Services, and protect employees who report safety concerns. It also directs creation of a public computing cluster ("CalCompute").

## Scope

Applies to developers of frontier models meeting compute-based thresholds, with heightened duties for large frontier developers above a revenue threshold. Most obligations are transparency and reporting duties rather than prescriptive technical requirements.

## Who it applies to

Frontier-model developers operating in California, including companies based elsewhere that train frontier models and do business in the state.

## What organisations must do

Large frontier developers should publish a frontier AI framework and model transparency reports, set up critical safety incident reporting, and implement whistleblower protections and internal reporting channels.

## Key dates

Signed 29 September 2025; operative 1 January 2026 (to be confirmed).

## Penalties

Civil penalties enforced by the Attorney General for non-compliance, with amounts set in the statute (reviewer to confirm figures).

## Obligations recorded against this instrument (5)

- **Large frontier developers must publish a frontier AI framework** (Business and Professions Code, Chapter 25.1 (as added by SB 53)) — Large frontier developers must publish and maintain a framework describing how they incorporate national and international standards, assess catastrophic risk, apply mitigations, secure model weights, and govern internal processes, and must review it at least annually.
  - Binding: yes
  - Applies from: 2026-01-01
  - Record: https://aipolicytracker.org/obligations/us-california-sb-53-frontier-ai-framework
- **Report critical safety incidents to the Office of Emergency Services** (Business and Professions Code, Chapter 25.1 (as added by SB 53)) — Frontier developers must report critical safety incidents to the California Office of Emergency Services within the statutory time limit after discovery, and the Office is to establish a reporting mechanism.
  - Binding: yes
  - Applies from: 2026-01-01
  - Record: https://aipolicytracker.org/obligations/us-california-sb-53-critical-safety-incident-reporting
- **Frontier developers must publish a transparency report before deploying a new frontier model** (Business and Professions Code Section 22757.12 (as added by SB 53)) — Before or at the time a frontier developer deploys a new frontier model, or a substantially modified version, it must publish a transparency report on its website describing the model, its intended uses and restrictions, the release date and modalities, and how to contact the developer. A large frontier developer must add a summary of its catastrophic-risk assessment for the model, the results, any third-party evaluators involved and the steps taken under its frontier AI framework, with trade-secret and security redactions explained.
  - Binding: yes
  - Applies from: 2026-01-01
  - Record: https://aipolicytracker.org/obligations/us-california-sb-53-transparency-report
- **Large frontier developers must send periodic summaries of catastrophic-risk assessments to the state** (Business and Professions Code Section 22757.12 (as added by SB 53)) — A large frontier developer must transmit to the California Office of Emergency Services, on the periodic schedule the statute sets, a summary of any assessment of catastrophic risk that results from the internal use of its frontier models. This covers risks arising before public deployment, such as during internal evaluation or use of the model to accelerate research, and complements the public transparency report.
  - Binding: yes
  - Applies from: 2026-01-01
  - Record: https://aipolicytracker.org/obligations/us-california-sb-53-catastrophic-risk-assessment-summaries
- **Frontier developers must protect employees who report catastrophic-risk concerns** (Labor Code Section 1107 (as added by SB 53)) — A frontier developer must not adopt rules or take action that prevent or retaliate against a covered employee for disclosing to the Attorney General, a federal authority, a manager or another employee with authority that the developer's activities pose a specific and substantial danger to public health or safety from catastrophic risk, or that it has violated the Act. Covered employees must be given clear notice of these rights, and large frontier developers must run an anonymous internal reporting process with regular updates to the reporter and to officers and directors.
  - Binding: yes
  - Applies from: 2026-01-01
  - Record: https://aipolicytracker.org/obligations/us-california-sb-53-whistleblower-protections

## Dated deadlines

- 2026-01-01 — Operative date (precision: exact, status: scheduled)

## Provenance

- **Permanent id**: AIPT-POL-0211 (https://aipolicytracker.org/id/AIPT-POL-0211; never changes or gets reused)
- **Record page**: https://aipolicytracker.org/policies/us-california-sb-53
- **Official source**: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB53
- **Source document**: SB 53 Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act
- **Published by**: California Legislative Information
- **Provision**: Chapter 853, Statutes of 2025 (reviewer to confirm chapter number)
- **Review status**: verified
- **Confidence**: medium
- **Facts last confirmed**: 2026-09-26
- **Confirmed by**: Bhaskar Bhatt (see https://aipolicytracker.org/reviewers)
- **Retrieved**: 2026-10-27
- **Licence**: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
- **Cite as**: AIPolicyTracker (2026). "California SB 53: Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act" [AIPT-POL-0211, record version 1, verified 26 September 2026 by Bhaskar Bhatt]. https://aipolicytracker.org/id/AIPT-POL-0211 (accessed 27 October 2026).

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