- Contrary to the image of “laissez-faire” technology, the US government is in fact tightly controlling the core foundation of the AI ecosystem. While the public focuses on applications like chatbots or image generation tools, Washington is deeply intervening in chips, supercomputers, and training data – the bedrock of artificial intelligence.
- Under both Trump and Biden, the US has enforced a policy of controlling exports of advanced AI chips, specifically preventing China from accessing powerful hardware. Biden has also restricted the sharing of “model weights” – the weights that determine how the AI generates responses.
- Meanwhile, the Trump administration negotiated chip manufacturing cooperation with the UAE to strengthen its strategic supply chain. The two seemingly opposing administrations both pursue selective interventionism – “loose on the surface, tight at the core.”
- The difference between the US and Europe is clear: the EU AI Act focuses on banning “high-risk” applications like AI in healthcare or surveillance, while the US shifts its focus to controlling the infrastructure layer – chips, data centers, algorithms, and access to computational resources.
- China also adopts a similar approach but for political reasons – restricting deepfakes and misinformation, ensuring “algorithmic sovereignty.”
- The nature of “deregulation” in the US is, in fact, regulation hidden through trade and national security. Technical regulations named as “Implementation of Additional Export Controls” or “Supercomputer and Semiconductor End Use” disguise their political nature.
- Researchers call this the third wave of AI regulation – combining social protection (following the European model) and national security (following the US-China model), aiming to avoid fragmentation and duplication.
- As authors Sacha Alanoca and Maroussia Lévesque comment: “US AI policy is not hands-off, but a redefinition of where regulation occurs – light on the surface, tight at the core.”
- If the US continues to maintain the “illusion of non-regulation,” all efforts to establish a global AI governance framework will become hollow, as the country with the world’s largest AI labs is actually maintaining deep control.
📌 Don’t be fooled: Contrary to the image of “laissez-faire” technology, the US government is in fact tightly controlling the core foundation of the AI ecosystem. US AI policy is one of deliberate intervention: loose at the application layer to foster innovation, but maintaining absolute control at the infrastructure layer – chips, data, and foundational models. It is a new soft power strategy, where technology becomes a political tool in the global AI hegemony competition.
