By Representatives Greg Walden & Loretta Sanchez:
As expected, artificial intelligence played a central role in the recent summit with President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping. Both leaders made clear that AI and the technologies powering it will shape the next era of U.S.-China competition.
But for all the ceremony and discussion, no major bilateral agreement on AI emerged. That’s probably for the better, as the United States and China are pursuing fundamentally different strategies in a high-stakes race for technological leadership.
We served in Congress as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee and vice chairwoman of the Homeland Security Committee, respectively. We saw firsthand that America’s economic strength and national security depend on the infrastructure underpinning our ambitions. In the AI race, that means maximizing U.S. computing power.
In simple terms, computing power is the combination of energy, advanced chips, servers, and data centers that turns AI breakthroughs into real-world capability. If we don’t have that infrastructure in place and at scale, we have no chance of competing with China.
While China moves with state-backed programs to build the data centers and domestic AI chips needed to win the race, America continues to hamstring our ambitions with more restrictions on data center construction. Over the last few months, China’s state-backed Envision built a new 2-gigawatt supercomputing campus, while Alibaba grew its AI cloud and computing services by 45%.
By contrast, local governments in the United States have added more than 300 active data center restrictions across 44 states.
Data centers are the heart of America’s AI infrastructure, and computing power remains one of our most important advantages over China in the AI race. China already leads in areas such as energy generation, AI adoption, and scientific talent, which makes protecting and expanding America’s computing advantage even more critical.
By building the energy, chips, servers, and data centers needed for American AI leadership, the United States can strengthen its geopolitical, economic, and military position while helping set global digital standards and ensuring American AI models are used around the world.
Continue reading at the Washington Examiner.