US President Trump: AI Competition Determines the Future
US President Trump responded to a question about whether the AI industry should slow its development by stating, "Whoever wins AI, wins the future."
Trump further mentioned that the US could set appropriate "protective measures" for AI, but criticized some current discussions around AI risks as "too negative," suggesting that voices advocating for a cautious and pessimistic view on AI development are exaggerated.
This statement came in response to a direct question from reporters about whether the AI industry should slow down. Trump did not directly answer whether he supports limiting the speed of AI research but reframed the issue as a national competition of "who can win AI."
Trump listed "protective measures" alongside "development speed," implying that his policy stance is to address concerns about AI risks by setting limited safety rules without significantly slowing the pace of AI industry development, rather than adopting a path of strong regulation or halting research.
The signal from this statement suggests that the federal level in the US is likely to continue a policy tendency of "light regulation, maintaining pace" in AI oversight. For companies like Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI, which are continuously increasing capital expenditures in computing power and models, this means that risks of tightening regulation and mandatory halts in research are relatively controllable in the short term, and capital is more likely to continue flowing into AI infrastructure and model development rather than waiting or withdrawing due to regulatory uncertainties.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Since taking office in early 2025, Trump's consistent approach to AI policy has been "deregulation and seizing technological leadership"—his administration quickly revoked the AI safety executive order signed during the Biden era, instead issuing a new policy framework emphasizing "America's AI dominance" and promoting relaxed export controls and encouraging investments in chips and data centers.
The core logic of this path is to attract capital towards AI infrastructure through policy loosening—this includes pushing energy and power supply towards data centers and relaxing foreign investment and chip export restrictions in exchange for domestic computing power expansion, essentially trading a narrative of national competition for a policy environment that accelerates corporate capital expenditures.
This is similar to the "national race" narrative the US adopted during the Cold War in nuclear technology and aerospace—at that time, Washington provided political legitimacy for high-intensity capital investment in technology fields under the framework of "whoever breaks through first will dominate the future landscape." Currently, the AI industry is at a stage where governments are elevating it to an issue of "national security and competitiveness," with regulation yielding to the logic of competition.
Essentially, this confirms a direction of regulatory change—when the narrative of national competition overshadows the narrative of risk governance, regulatory agencies tend to set symbolic, non-mandatory "protective measures" in practice rather than imposing strong regulations that substantially limit the speed of research, allowing capital to continue flowing into AI infrastructure and model development in a relatively relaxed policy environment.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
- Whoever races first defines the boundaries of safety first.
- When the narrative of national competition sounds, regulation yields to speed.
- Protective measures are a placebo; competition is the real policy.