Inside America’s AI Strategy: Infrastructure, Regulation, and Global Competition

Maria Bartiromo moderates David Sacks, then Trump’s White House AI-and-crypto czar, and Michael Kratsios, his science-and-technology adviser, on America’s AI strategy. They are key officials shaping policy on regulation, infrastructure, science, exports, and competition with China. ([Davos USA House][1])

They believe the AI infrastructure boom reflects real demand, not a dot-com-style bubble. Every new GPU is being used, and they credit data-center construction with roughly two percentage points of recent U.S. GDP growth.

Their biggest domestic policy fight is stopping fragmented state regulation from slowing startups. They cite more than 1,200 state AI bills and want one lightweight federal standard, but passing it requires bipartisan Senate support.

AI leadership now depends as much on electricity as on models and chips. They want data centers to build their own power and claim this can prevent—and eventually lower—residential electricity rates, but that benefit is possible, not proven.

They expect 2026 to be the year AI shifts from chatbot to working agent. Coding assistants are improving rapidly, and similar systems are expected to create spreadsheets, presentations and websites, handle files and email, and evolve toward personal digital assistants.

Science may become AI’s most consequential long-term use. The Genesis Mission aims to accelerate fusion, materials and medicine through national-lab data and automated experimentation, with Kratsios hoping AI could nearly double U.S. R&D output over ten years.

America leads China today, but winning ultimately means global adoption, not benchmark bragging rights. They estimate U.S. leads of roughly six months in models, two years in chips and five in chipmaking equipment, while pushing American AI stacks abroad before China does.

Their worldview is strongly pro-innovation: regulation and government misuse worry them more than AI itself. They reject Europe’s precaution-heavy model, warn against surveillance and political bias, and disagree with Elon Musk that AI will soon eliminate work, expecting productivity and abundance instead.