WASHINGTON—On Thursday, senators from the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation discussed the need to accelerate U.S. artificial intelligence innovation to maintain global leadership in AI development.
“The United States leads today, but what I would like to say is, it is a race. Leadership is absolutely not guaranteed.” Dr. Lisa Su, CEO and Chair of Advanced Micro Devices, said.
According to the 2024 Stanford AI Index, the United States currently ranks first in quantity and quality of AI models, but China has been closing the quality gap.
At a hearing Thursday, titled “Winning the AI Race: Strengthening U.S. capabilities in Computing and Innovation,” members of Congress and witnesses discussed the importance of American investment in AI development globally to preserve U.S. dominance.
“This future can be almost unimaginably bright, but only if we take concrete steps to ensure that an American-led version of AI, built on democratic values like freedom and transparency,
prevails over an authoritarian one,” Sam Altman, CEO and co-founder of OpenAI, said in his testimony.
OpenAI is a leading American artificial intelligence company and the developer of ChatGPT, a free online chatbot. OpenAI launched OpenAI for Countries on Wednesday to help grow global AI adoption using OpenAI’s tech as the foundation.
Chinese AI firm DeepSeek shook the tech world when it launched its new AI model in January. It claimed that its AI model performs as well as OpenAI while using less energy and less advanced hardware.
“The number one factor that will define whether the United States or China wins this race is whose technology is most broadly adopted in the rest of the world,” said Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President of Microsoft Corporation. He argued that whoever creates a global network of trust in and access to their technology first will most likely win the AI race.
Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the committee, suggested creating a “tech NATO” where the five democracies with the most sophisticated technology set rules and advisories on the technology supply chain and implementation. She emphasized the importance of creating international alliances in the technology sector.
While Democrats on the committee stressed the importance of protecting users and their intellectual property from AI through regulation, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, chairman of the committee, criticized strong regulation of AI.
Cruz said he would create a new bill “that creates a regulatory sandbox for AI modeled on the approach taken by Congress and President Clinton at the dawn of the internet.”
The Telecommunications Act of 1996, signed into law by Clinton, intended to promote competition and deregulate the tech industry.
“To lead in AI, the United States can not allow regulation, even the supposedly benign kind, to choke innovation or adoption,” Cruz said.
Several committee members emphasized the importance of the U.S. winning the AI race so that American values remain in high regard globally.
“We’re trying to win a race so that American values prevail internationally,” Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said.
Erin Drumm is a reporter for the Medill News Service covering politics. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2024 with a BA in American Studies and is now a graduate student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism specializing in politics, policy and foreign affairs.
U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One on August 14, 2026 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. Trump is traveling to Long Island to tour law enforcement facilities in Nassau County and rally support for local Republican candidates ahead of the upcoming midterm elections
Travel Far Enough, You Meet Yourself
Is it possible that our President has simply not traveled enough?
Born and raised in Queens and attending Fordham University in the Bronx, Donald Trump has no record of traveling outside New York until he was over 20, when he transferred to a college in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania. Were his formative years amiss, then, in his learning about other places and other people?
Is his view akin to the famous New Yorker cover by Saul Steinberg, an illustration of the United States with New York City as the epicenter of the country and the Hudson River the border of the known world? We can now at least add Washington, D.C., and Mar-a-Lago to the map of “the realm.”
Our President has now traveled some, but what we recommend is another kind of travel. Not a state-sponsored trip or a venture to scout locations for future Trump Towers. This would be a genuine travel experience, enriching and eye-opening, showcasing other cultures and ways of living.
It will extend far beyond viewing military parades, hobnobbing with such “understanding” world leaders as Kim Jong Un, or taking tea with the King.
WHERE, then, should the President go? As Elon Musk’s Starship spacecraft is not yet ready to take passengers to Mars, perhaps he could explore our own vast country?
Maybe he could travel to “flyover country,” the farming states, where his ying-yanging tariffs and trade restrictions have played havoc with rural economies. Or possibly to California, number one in homeless U. S. citizens, and while there, regale homeless veterans (approximately 32,500 nationwide) with tales of his brave exploits invading and bombing foreign countries.
Or he might tour the Great Lakes, and rename the other four?
WHEN should he go? This will be tough, as he is very busy building his ballroom and renaming bodies of water.
How about a trip in early November, around the midterm elections? Despite the long-discredited accusation of widespread voter fraud, it would be reassuring to know he might be so caught up divvying out ladles of soup in a soup kitchen somewhere that he wouldn’t remember to deploy the military for “election security.”
HOW will he travel? He should definitely not take his Qatari-donated, newly renovated 747, especially after last time, when he had to be smuggled off clandestinely in a catering truck. It’s unlikely any traveling companions, like the Secretary of State or of the Treasury, are going to fall for the ruse a second time. Besides, we may need those people. No more decoys!
Perhaps the President could fly commercially, although this likely would expose him to undue suffering. Without gold bathroom fixtures and maple wood floors, the trip will be no “Luxury Experience.” If only he still had his “Trump Shuttle,” bought with a massive loan he later defaulted on, saying then, “I’m smart. I got out at a good time.”
Considering the potential pitfalls, maybe it’s best the President travel incognito, disguised perhaps as an elderly woman wearing a lot of bronzer.
Wherever, whenever, however: our President needs a vacation.
Moreover, we need a vacation from him.
If the President refuses our travel suggestions, here’s another idea:
Let’s get him a pet! He has never owned a pet. As we know with our children, pets teach essential life lessons: compassion and empathy; they instill a sense of responsibility. There is a well-established connection between those who can care for a pet and those who can care for people.
So, which pet should we choose? A puppy? A kitten? A boa constrictor?
Imagine, the President may even decide he likes having a pet. After all, what is more obedient than a well-trained dog, besides possibly the Cabinet? And what is more docile than a sweet kitten, other than plausibly the Supreme Court?
The President may even become more mellow with a pet afoot and less likely to slap tariffs on our allies, or attempt to annex our neighbors, or bully our Congress. (Realizing, of course, a bully requires active participation from the bullied to maintain his status.)
Maybe we should do both: get the President a pet and devise a travel plan for him. (Do you think we could possibly convince him to leave his phone at home?)
Let’s go for it! After all:
Travel far enough, you meet yourself. (David Mitchell)
And for our President, that would likely be the most profound discovery of all.
Amy Lockard is an Iowa resident who regularly contributes to regional newspapers and periodicals. She is working on the second of a four-book fictional series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice."