Here’s How the U.S. Can Win the Age of AI

In order to lead the world on AI, the U.S. must build and protect the infrastructure that makes it possible.

By Cory Gardner as first published in National Review

I grew up in rural eastern Colorado in a family that sold farm equipment for more than a century. Recently, I came across a 1930 McCormick-Deering tractor sales manual in our old dealership. It promised to relieve farmers of “irksome chores” while warning that some would resist progress out of nostalgia for their existing, horse-powered machinery. Needless to say, the farmers who embraced tractors thrived, and those who clung to horses were left behind.

AI is today’s tractor.

But unlike the 1930s, when leadership in the technological revolution was determined by who built the flashiest and best-marketed models, winning the AI revolution will be determined by who builds and protects the infrastructure that makes AI possible in the first place.

Issued late last year, President Trump’s Genesis Mission executive order makes a clear, bold statement: The United States intends to win the age of artificial intelligence. That’s certainly the right goal, but the real question now is whether we’re prepared to build the foundation required to lead the world in AI.

Right now, that infrastructure is being deployed by an industry most Americans don’t immediately associate with AI: next-generation broadband connectivity. These are the pipes that carry the 600-plus gigabits of data the average household now consumes each month.

Supercharging AI requires the right policies to support the investment needed to build networks capable of managing these surging data demands. If we don’t get this piece right, Genesis risks becoming another ambitious government initiative that falls short of its potential.

AI runs on a massive, constant flow of data. The fiber-rich broadband networks built by America’s cable and connectivity providers are the vital backbone of this new economy. Over the past two decades, our industry has invested more than $355 billion in high-speed critical infrastructure, including $26 billion last year alone. Nearly 90 percent of Americans today can access gigabit speeds from cable connectivity providers, while the cost per megabit has fallen by 98 percent.

That combination — faster speeds at lower costs — is the secret sauce that has allowed AI tools to move so successfully beyond research labs and into small businesses, classrooms, and homes. Connectivity is core to AI, and any serious national AI strategy must treat broadband as critical infrastructure for both economic growth and national security.

Policy stability matters just as much. A patchwork of state-by-state AI regulations would slow innovation and deter investment at the very moment we need both to accelerate. The Genesis Mission points in the right direction: a coherent federal framework that protects consumers and national security without creating 50 different compliance rulebooks. In the United States of America, AI opportunity shouldn’t depend on your ZIP Code.

Research and development must also remain front and center. Federal support for advanced research and development, paired with private-sector investment, is essential to breakthroughs in dynamic spectrum sharing, network management, cybersecurity, and more. AI is already helping operators detect adversarial threats and manage traffic more efficiently. Smarter spectrum policy, including expanded sharing in bands such as the lower 7 GHz range, will unlock additional capacity. We aren’t making more spectrum. Innovation is how we make better use of what we have.

Leadership in AI also means protecting the creators who fuel it. Strong copyright protections and predictable intellectual property rules are prerequisites to innovation, not obstacles, as some claim. Our programmers and content creators have invested more than half a trillion dollars in entertainment and information over the past two decades, supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs. Courts are fully capable of applying longstanding fair-use principles to AI questions without sweeping new exemptions that undermine American creativity.

Then there’s the workforce. AI will transform network operations, edge computing, data infrastructure management, and much more that we cannot even imagine right now. Preparing workers for these shifts through education, training, and reskilling ensures that AI’s gains translate into broad-based economic opportunity rather than anxiety and disruption.

Finally, we must earn public trust. That means being candid about both the promise and the challenges of AI — for instance, how it can strengthen cybersecurity, improve health-care delivery, optimize energy systems, and solve future problems that would boggle even the brightest minds today — while addressing legitimate concerns about misuse and the humanity it impacts.

The Genesis Mission makes clear that America understands what’s at stake. However, this ambition must be matched with execution. If we invest in connectivity, avoid regulatory fragmentation, prioritize research, protect intellectual property, develop our workforce, and deploy AI responsibly, America will undoubtedly set the pace.

In the back of that 1930s tractor manual was a simple warning: Machines cannot be ignored. The country that uses them most wisely will lead this century.

Image: Shutterstock.com