- A bipartisan US congressional commission urges a “Manhattan Project” for AI to outpace China.
- The commission recommends contracts for AI, cloud, and data center firms to ensure US leadership.
- Trump has previously called China the “primary threat” in the AI race.
Donald Trump has made no secret that he sees China as the US’ biggest rival in AI. Ahead of his second presidency, a bipartisan congressional commission has called for a “Manhattan Project-like” program to fund initiatives to beat China in the race to build powerful AI that surpasses human intelligence.
In its annual report, published Tuesday, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission recommended that Congress establish a project “dedicated to racing to and acquiring an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) capability.”
The Manhattan Project was a secret program led by the US government during World War II to develop the world’s first atomic bombs. While AGI does not yet exist, companies such as OpenAI are striving to build systems that can understand and solve any intellectual task that humans can.
The commission also suggested giving the executive branch the power to award multiyear contracts and funding for AI, cloud, and data center firms. These would aim to establish “US AGI leadership.” Trump’s previous comments on AI and China suggest he would support this objective.
In an interview on Logan Paul’s “Impaulsive” podcast in June, Trump said, “We have to be at the forefront” of AI.
“We have to take the lead over China, China is the primary threat,” he added.
Trump has said he plans to introduce tariffs against China. However, President Joe Biden’s administration has implemented sweeping sanctions against the country.
The US Treasury Department issued a final rule last month to implement new restrictions on US venture capital firms’ investments in Chinese tech startups. The limits, which will come into effect in January, will prevent investors from backing Chinese firms developing AI models. The US has also implemented sanctions against China that aim to limit its access to advanced AI chips.
According to the commission’s report, 50 companies in China were developing AI models as of June 2024, compared with what it says is just a small number of large companies in the US building AI models.
ChatGPT maker OpenAI proposed that the government provide more funding for AI development in its “Infrastructure Blueprint for the US,” which was seen by Business Insider presented in Washington last week. OpenAI also cited the Manhattan Project in its blueprint as one of the US’s “iconic infrastructure projects that moved the country forward.”
However, many prominent AI safety advocates, including AI “godfather” Yoshua Bengio, have spoken out about the potential dangers that could arise from race dynamics between countries and companies, including the possibility of AI going rogue without sufficient risk mitigation.
Future of Life Institute cofounder and MIT professor Max Tegmark told The Guardian last week that Elon Musk’s influence on the incoming Trump administration could mean that he will persuade Trump to “understand that an AGI race is a suicide race.”
