Promoting Competition, Not Regulation, Is Key to US AI Leadership
Artificial intelligence is commanding headlines.
In the first week of his second term, President Donald Trump rescinded the Biden administration’s October 2023 executive order on AI; issued a new, less-regulatory AI executive order; and announced the $500 billion “Stargate” joint venture on AI infrastructure, involving Oracle, OpenAI, and Softbank.
That same week, the Chinese AI firm DeepSeek announced a new AI large language model (LLM) that was purported to be comparable to the leading American OpenAI model, but developed at a fraction of the cost. This underscored China’s potential as a strong international rival to the United States in the quest for AI leadership.
Then, speaking at a Feb. 11 global AI summit in Paris, Vice President J.D. Vance “push[ed] back on European efforts to tighten AI oversight while advocating for a more open, innovation-driven approach.” He emphasized that the United States intends to remain the “gold standard” in AI technology.
In the coming months, the Trump administration may be rolling out new policy prescriptions to support procompetitive and innovative growth in AI. As the administration weighs alternatives, the time is ripe to revisit the case against AI regulation, and to suggest some specific initiatives the administration may wish to consider as part of its AI action agenda.