White House, CIA Tout New Policy for AI Technology, but Savage Chinese Competition Emerges
1.28.2025
The White House is accelerating America’s AI technology development and plans to revamp the government’s industrial policy. But the Chinese seem to be striving for the same lucrative science, technology and economic policy goal, and are arriving in the market right now with their own AI.
Last week, in remarks at the Oval Office, President Trump signed an Executive Order putting the power of U.S. government funding and deregulation behind artificial intelligence. Lawyer and AI investor David Sacks, now the White House ‘AI and crypto advisor,’ appeared with the President. Pool reporters covering the event asked Trump, “Will AI replace jobs?,” according to the transcript from The White House Press Office. “No,” Trump told reporters, AI “will create a number of jobs.” For example, the president said that on use of AI in “cancer research, we are way ahead of China.”
There is great fear that AI will be a devastating job killer, however, in the legal industry, for example, there is widespread anxiety that AI could replace associate lawyers for routine contract drafting.
Beijing on Monday made a major, surprising disclosure: A Chinese company called DeepSeek has developed an AI language model that it claims can compete directly with U.S. technology. And at a much lower cost. The boast roiled U.S. equities markets, where AI companies like Nvidia have been enjoying a bull market. This revelation also came after tech investor Elon Musk voiced criticism that a $500 million AI project called Project Stargate, led by Oracle and Softbank and Sam Altman, the U.S. AI software pioneer, and favored by Trump, was poorly resourced. The DeepSeek software app ascended to the top listing on free online downloads on the Apple App Store on Monday on the hype.
But also on Monday, rhetorically outflanking Beijing, and the sinking stock market for AI, the new CIA director, John Ratcliffe, is quoted as saying that that the U.S. will put enough money into AI research to rival, in inflation adjusted dollars, the Manhattan Project of World War II.
