Vice President JD Vance recently made an announcement that is sending shockwaves through the tech sector.
When President Donald Trump first named Vance his running mate, speculation rose that the latter’s background in Silicon Valley would benefit U.S. tech companies eager to expand. Trump and Vance’s victory further reinforced this mindset among investors, generating positive momentum for many tech stocks.
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However, one of Vance’s most significant acts as Vice President may have the opposite impact. In fact, his recent decision has cast doubt over the industry’s future, and it comes at a pivotal time, as other factors raise important questions for artificial intelligence (AI) companies.
The new VP seems to be attempting to follow Trump’s strategy of prioritizing the interests of U.S. companies over everything else, which may pose dire consequences for the industry.
JD Vance has big plans for AI
On February 10 and 11, tech professionals and policymakers alike flocked to the AI Action Summit in Paris, France, to discuss strategies for handling the industry’s explosive growth.
French President Emmanuel Macron had recently announced a $112 billion investment in his country’s AI ecosystem in a clear attempt to catch up to the U.S. market.
This could have been a turning point for global AI development, but Vance responded by refusing to sign the summit declaration, a pledge to ensure their AI technology would be “safe, secure and trustworthy.”
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Vance framed these measures as a regulatory stronghold, stating that the U.S. would focus on producing “the most powerful AI systems” domestically produced chips. He added that for the U.S. to partner with European nations on AI development, they would need to see deregulatory measures regarding AI policy.
“We believe that excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry just as it’s taking off,” Vance stated while addressing the Summit’s attendees. “And I’d like to see that deregulatory flavor making its way into a lot of the conversations (at) this conference.”
He refused to allow the U.S. to sign the pledge, as did the United Kingdom. Nations that have signed it include China, India and Germany. However, some experts don’t believe that Vance’s anti-safe and ethical AI stance is purely driven by regulation.
Phil Mataras, founder of decentralized data storage platform AR.IO, sees the U.S. and UK’s decision not to sign the Global AI Accord as purely about power and profit.
“The reluctance of both the United States and the United Kingdom to sign a global accord on the development of AI is a testament to their desire to control and monetize a sector that should be developed for the public good,” he states.
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Mataras adds that these nations seem to want control of the global AI industry as both are used to dominating and maintaining control of entire sectors. He sees this as a significant missed opportunity for AI, flagging the threat of rising competition from China.
“Following the launch of DeepSeek, China’s arguably problematic, but certainly much cheaper alternative to ChatGPT, this further underlines the beginning of a global AI arms race that is likely to get ugly,” Mataras notes.
The Trump administration could complicate the global AI arms race
Given the president’s history of deregulation and protectionism, Vance’s anti-regulation perspective should be expected from Trump’s administration. However, AI is considered by many to be the most important and transformational technology of its era. At this point, the quest to dominate it domestically may be a lost cause.
As Mataras highlights, the rise of DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup that has managed to train a powerful AI model for significantly less than its peers and built it with less advanced chips, is likely concerning for all other nations.
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Many experts have highlighted the problem that DeepSeek may pose for U.S. AI supremacy, including former Google (GOOGL) CEO Eric Schmidt, who recently sounded the alarm on this exact topic, noting the astounding speed at which DeepSeek’s AI models are advancing.
“Schmidt praises not just the R1 model but its new Janus Pro, a multimodal AI model that can generate images from text and, according to DeepSeek, can outperform Dall⋅E 3, a similar model from OpenAI,” TheStreet reports.
Vance is clearly focused on helping the U.S. remain ahead in the AI arms race if, in fact, it still is at the front. But at this point, it may be a better strategy for nations not to hinder global AI development, as dominating the industry will likely mean undertaking DeepSeek.
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