Yazılar

AI Leaders Urge U.S. to Boost Exports and Infrastructure to Stay Ahead of China

/in /tarafından

Top executives from OpenAI, Microsoft, and AMD warned U.S. lawmakers on Thursday that the country risks losing its lead in artificial intelligence to China unless it expands infrastructure, loosens AI chip export restrictions, and strengthens workforce training. Their testimony before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Senator Ted Cruz, emphasized the urgent need for pro-growth AI policies to counter China’s rapid advancements.

The call to action follows China’s DeepSeek AI breakthrough last year and Huawei’s rollout of advanced AI chips, both of which have shaken Washington’s confidence in maintaining AI dominance.

“The number-one factor that will define whether the U.S. or China wins this race is whose technology is most broadly adopted in the rest of the world,” said Brad Smith, President of Microsoft. He added that Microsoft has banned internal use of DeepSeek due to data privacy and propaganda concerns.
“The lesson from Huawei and 5G is that whoever gets there first will be difficult to supplant.”

Key Takeaways from the Senate Hearing:

  • OpenAI CEO Sam Altman emphasized the need for massive infrastructure investment, including data centers and power generation, to fuel AI’s growth.

  • AMD CEO Lisa Su highlighted the importance of maintaining competitiveness in AI chip design while also ensuring export flexibility.

  • Smith called for broader AI education, R&D funding, and skilled labor development, including more electricians for AI facilities.

The tech industry is pushing back against Biden-era AI export rules that aimed to limit China’s access to powerful AI chips. In response, the Trump administration is preparing to rescind those curbs and replace them with a new framework — a move praised by Cruz, Altman, and Su during the session.

“The Biden administration’s misguided midnight AI diffusion rule on chips and model weights would have crippled American tech companies’ ability to sell AI to the world,” Cruz said.

China’s DeepSeek, based in Hangzhou, made waves by launching a powerful, cost-effective AI model competitive with OpenAI and Meta — a move that intensified pressure on U.S. lawmakers to act quickly.

Meanwhile, Huawei is preparing to mass-ship advanced AI chips to Chinese customers despite ongoing U.S. trade restrictions.

With national security, economic leadership, and technological supremacy at stake, AI executives stressed that global market penetration—not just technical capability—will determine who wins the AI race.

AI Leaders Urge U.S. Senate to Accelerate Power Permitting, Unlock Government Data for AI Training

/in /tarafından

Top executives from Microsoft, OpenAI, AMD, and CoreWeave will testify before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday, pressing lawmakers to modernize power infrastructure and expand access to federal data to meet the soaring demands of artificial intelligence.

Key Points from Testimonies:

🔹 Brad Smith (Microsoft President)

  • Warns U.S. AI development is hampered by “50-year-old infrastructure”.

  • Calls for streamlined permitting for new energy sources and transmission lines.

  • Urges Congress to unlock federal government data for AI training to stay competitive with China and the U.K.

“The federal government remains one of the largest untapped sources of high-quality data.”

🔹 Sam Altman (OpenAI CEO)

  • Emphasizes growing global reliance on AI:

“We want to build a brain for the world and make it super easy for people to use it.”

  • Says increased AI adoption requires more chips, energy, supercomputers, and training data.

  • Advocates for “common-sense restrictions” to mitigate potential AI harms.

🔹 Michael Intrator (CoreWeave CEO)

  • Highlights the massive energy appetite of AI:

“An insatiable hunger for compute and energy that borders on exponential.”

  • Points to DOE projections: Data centers could consume 12% of U.S. electricity by 2028 (up from 4.4% in 2023).

  • Urges faster approval of generation and transmission projects.

🔹 Lisa Su (AMD CEO)

  • Argues leadership in AI means rapid data center expansion powered by reliable, clean, affordable energy.

  • Stresses the need to extend AI beyond the cloud, integrating it into everyday consumer devices.

“AI must be as accessible and dependable as electricity.”

Context & Urgency:

  • The Senate hearing, titled “Winning the AI Race”, comes as AI’s power and data demands grow exponentially.

  • Leaders argue that regulatory inertia threatens U.S. competitiveness in AI against global rivals.

By linking national competitiveness with infrastructure and data reform, the tech leaders hope to align federal policy with AI’s exponential growth trajectory.

Jeff Bezos Leads $72M Investment in AI Data Firm Toloka to Fuel U.S. Expansion

/in /tarafından

Jeff Bezos, through his personal firm Bezos Expeditions, is leading a $72 million funding round in Toloka, an AI data solutions company aiming to scale its global presence, particularly in the United States, Toloka told Reuters on Wednesday.

Toloka specializes in training and evaluating AI models using a global network of human experts and testers, providing high-quality data labeling and validation. The company is part of Nebius Group (NBIS.O), an AI infrastructure firm listed on Nasdaq and formerly affiliated with Russian tech giant Yandex.

The investment marks a significant milestone for CEO and founder Olga Megorskaya, who said the funding would accelerate product development by fostering collaboration between AI agents and human experts.

“There will always be the need for control, verification, and help from human experts to ensure that the result is actually of high quality,” she said.

Strategic Backing and Global Shift

The deal comes after Nebius successfully split from Yandex in a $5.4 billion exit from Russia, the largest corporate withdrawal since the 2022 Ukraine invasion. The restructuring allowed Nebius and Toloka to pursue Western capital without violating sanctions.

Other notable participants in the round include Mikhail Parakhin, CTO of Shopify, who will also serve as Toloka’s executive chairman. Parakhin emphasized the urgent global demand for trusted AI data solutions.

In late 2023, Nvidia invested in a $700 million private placement in Nebius, highlighting growing institutional interest in AI infrastructure and tools.

With this latest funding round:

  • Bezos Expeditions and other new investors gain equity

  • Nebius retains a majority economic stake, but gives up majority voting control, enabling Toloka to operate independently

  • A future funding round is anticipated, Megorskaya said

The investment underscores a broader trend of scaling AI companies focused on high-quality data pipelines, as tech giants like Amazon, Microsoft, and Anthropic increasingly rely on curated training datasets for safe and effective AI model development.