Top executives at American AI giants OpenAI, Microsoft and AMD appeared at a U.S. Senate hearing Thursday to outline ways they believe Washington can stay ahead of Beijing in the artificial intelligence race.
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The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Republican Senator Ted Cruz, is looking to cut regulatory barriers to U.S. artificial intelligence after China's DeepSeek shocked the world with a high-quality, affordable AI model last year.
The U.S. tech industry has seized on that development to lobby the Trump administration for more favorable policies, arguing that promoting worldwide use of AI that reflects democratic values is a matter of national interest.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, maker of flagship AI model ChatGPT, is testifying, as are Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft, and Lisa Su, CEO of AI chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).
Altman told the panel he expects societal advances from AI to accelerate in the next few years through U.S. investment.
"Investment in infrastructure is critical," Altman said during the hearing. The U.S. "will be not only the place where the AI revolution happens but all the revolutions after," he said.
The development of AI has depended on specialized computer chips, huge amounts of data to train large-language models, vast amounts of energy and a technically skilled workforce.
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Smith told the panel that to succeed, the U.S. will need to support companies at all layers of the AI ecosystem, and partner with allies around the world, according to his prepared remarks.
Deepseek, a Hangzhou-based upstart, stunned the world last year when it unveiled a powerful AI model competitive with the likes of OpenAI and Meta Platforms, but cheaper to run.
The move was surprising against the backdrop of sweeping rules imposed by President Joe Biden's administration, aimed at cutting off China from American AI chips and capabilities, over fears Beijing could use the powerful technology to supercharge its military. The Trump administration has so far taken a similar approach, last month imposing new licensing requirements on shipments to China of AI chips made by Nvidia and AMD that the companies designed to get around prior export restrictions.
But the limitations have spurred criticism from industry participants and some lawmakers who say the rules hamstring U.S. companies and hand the lucrative Chinese AI market to companies like Huawei, which has designed a competitive AI chip known as Ascend.
"The way to beat China in the AI race is to outrace them in innovation, not saddle AI developers with European-style regulations," Cruz said in a statement announcing the hearing.