Trump unleashes bid for AI world dominance

Someone or something is surely counting this week’s column inches related to President Donald Trump, and whatever the figure I’m sure Trump will be very proud of it. 

He’s known to like big numbers, and yesterday Trump announced one such big number:  $500billion investment into an AI project with the suitably ‘sci-fi’ name of “Stargate”.

This announcement is designed to enable the US to play catch up against China, who are considered to be in the lead in the “superintelligence” race. The project also has the potential to create 100,000 jobs. 

Flanked by the leaders of OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle, Trump introduced this enormous new initiative to build out data centres across the US, starting with expanding the existing one already under construction in Texas. The Emirati AI investor MGX are also involved in putting up the first $100bn. Microsoft received a mention but conspicuous by his absence was Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and xAI. Seemingly, while prepared to be joined at Trump’s hip, Musk has reservations over public displays of unity with his industry rivals. 

For Stargate’s backers, Oracle’s executive chairman Larry Ellison gave the most detail as to what all this data processing capacity would initially be used for. He exhorted the projects potential by talking about AI being the “promise of the future”, with the potential capacity to produce ‘vaccines for cancer’ personalised to the individual within 48 hours. He did not mention any indication of the cost to the recipient. 

Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank, then welcomed a ‘new golden age of America’ whilst OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had something of a walk-on part. I would suggest this was intentional due to Altman and Musk having worked together a decade ago to create OpenAI. The two have a more tumultuous relationship now, which Musk did not hesitate to play out on ‘X’ following the press conference.  

Regardless of personal politics, Data centres need power, and on this scale, a lot of power. 

In the days prior to this announcement the Senate was warned by Doug Burgum, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the Interior, that the US would lose the AI race if it did not prioritise baseload electricity generation, primarily from fossil fuels, to meet the energy demands required by AI via these data centres. 

We therefore have a window into Trump’s pledge to withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, the announcement of a US ‘national energy emergency’, and the administration’s intention to increase US production of oil and gas. 

Trump’s announcements related to climate, energy and technology will most likely have some other countries examining their domestic policies in these areas, and is undoubtedly one of the main topics of conversation at the World Economic Forum in Davos. 

Speaking in a snowy Davos today, Jonathan Reynolds, the UK Business and Trade Secretary, recognised how Trump was communicating an optimistic message to the American people on getting things done, even though he did not agree with Trump’s approach.

Meanwhile back in a drizzly UK, Sir Keir Starmer has announced plans to clear a pathway for major infrastructure to be built out faster. This includes overhauling the legislation that currently allows for three legal challenges down to just one, a move that is designed to speed up the delivery of major energy infrastructure projects, including data centres.

If the UK wants to stay competitive in the AI race, it cannot overlook the enormous demands and current constraints on energy infrastructure that come with it - nor can any other country.