This opinion piece is part of Access Partnership’s ‘A Digital Manifesto’ initiative, which recommends a framework to develop US global leadership on digital policy for the first 100 days of the Trump administration.
With its leadership in AI development, infrastructure, and software, the US has the pivotal opportunity to shape the course of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies across the globe. Against this backdrop are recent initiatives such as Stargate, a White House-led project that seeks to facilitate a USD 500 billion joint venture between prominent players including OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle to construct data centres.
As the AI arms race continues and becomes increasingly close, a forward-thinking approach to managing national AI leadership is necessary – one that not only fosters innovation and responsible AI adoption within the US but also strengthens the nation’s leadership on the global stage.
To harness its full potential, the government must focus on three key areas: (1) Develop a national AI strategy to maintain leadership; (2) Solidify the US’s leading global role in building frontier models, adoption, and innovation with allies; and (3) Enhance AI research capacity and enabling infrastructure.
Pillar 1: Develop a comprehensive national AI strategy
Myriad factors are emerging that may impact the US’s leadership in AI development. Country-level competition has begun to intensify, and China has been increasing its number of government-led investments into AI chips research, AI software (e.g., DeepSeek), and 5G. The proliferation of AI applications across the world means that the US must make efforts to not only defend but also to grow its leadership into novel use cases and capabilities.
The first pillar of the AI strategy would therefore be to refocus on defending and growing the US’s AI leadership by developing a new national AI strategy. The plan must provide a vision of both domestic AI ecosystem development and ways to grow American business’ share of the global AI market. President Trump’s Executive Order on enhancing America’s AI leadership is the first step in this direction.
Pillar 2: Solidify the US’s leading global role in building frontier models, adoption, and innovation with allies
The challenges and opportunities presented by AI have become increasingly complex and interconnected across economies. With a global supply chain for semiconductors, global talent pools, and a global consumer base, countries are increasingly taking a collaborative approach to AI development. The House of Representatives’ bipartisan AI Task Force has also released a slew of recommendations, while initiatives like the AI Safety institutes and standards building are also expected to drive US leadership.
This means that the second pillar of the AI strategy must focus on international collaboration, working with allies to drive American technology, business, and interests. The US should work with allies on a range of issues including, but not limited to:
- Securing semiconductor supply chains to develop advanced AI chips
- Leveraging US allies’ capital and talent pools to securely develop frontier AI models
- Establishing cross-border data flows to ensure US companies can expand their access to high-quality data relevant to AI model training and inference
Pillar 3: Enhance AI research capacity and enabling infrastructure
Research efforts are essential to advancing AI algorithms and for piloting AI adoption. Investing in further experimentation and testing would also be key to ensuring AI technologies advance President Trump’s AI objectives: to ‘promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.’ While the US still leads on metrics like overall research and development (R&D) intensity (i.e., its R&D spending as a share of GDP), China is not far behind, and the US must surpass China’s concerted innovation efforts to defend its AI leadership.
The third and final pillar of the federal AI strategy must therefore focus on supporting such research activities through enhanced funding – a fact recognized by the Trump administration as early as 2019 – as well as key infrastructure that enables AI computation to run. National innovation agencies are already playing a vital role in promoting early-stage research that can bridge the gap between academia and industry. Increased funding for these agencies will enable them to undertake ambitious projects, support start-ups, and drive technological breakthroughs. At the same time, the US should also dedicate investments to boost energy production to run its AI capabilities and to serve power-intensive data centres necessary to support AI-related computation.
Why AI leadership will be crucial
As a general-purpose technology, any country that possesses an edge in AI technology may soon see that edge spill over in many other parts of its economy. Emerging AI-related trends – such as China’s rise and the EU’s regulatory-centric approach to digital policy – make it crucial that the US supports an AI ecosystem that is independent, pro-innovation, and light touch. In doing so, the US will not only be able to defend its economic future but also its national security by ensuring that democratic and market-driven AI, as opposed to state-driven AI, succeeds.
Access Partnership supports our clients in navigating complicated policy by providing strategic advice on the rapidly evolving global AI market and its regulatory changes. To find out more about the future of AI leadership and how we can help you, please contact Meghan Chilappa at [email protected], Nur Ridhuan at [email protected], and Jonathan Gonzalez at [email protected].
