President Trump is implementing a new plan to beat China in the technology race that emphasizes promoting and protecting America’s advantages, the White House’s tech policy chief says.
Michael Kratsios, director for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, told an audience in Austin, Texas, this week that China’s ascent to a technological competitor and geopolitical rival is “thanks to decades of feckless American leaders” and all of that is about to change.
“After 30 years of subsidizing Chinese growth, it is time for us to stop helping a rival catch up with us in that race,” Mr. Kratsios said at the Endless Frontiers Retreat. “Strict and simple export controls and know your customer rules, with an unapologetic America-first attitude about enforcing them, are central to stopping China from continuing to build itself up at our expense.”
Mr. Kratsios told the gathering of technologists and their financiers that the Trump administration believes the Biden administration secured technology poorly and did not strengthen America’s position in any way.
He said the previous administration went wrong by seeking to “protect its managerial power from the disruptions of technology, while promoting social division and redistribution in the name of equity.”
“Our first assignment is to secure America’s preeminence in critical and emerging technologies,” Mr. Kratsios said. “This administration will ensure that our nation remains the leader in the industries of the future with a strategy of both promotion and protection — protecting our greatest assets and promoting our greatest innovators.”
The Trump administration plans to promote American innovation in artificial intelligence, quantum technology and semiconductors through the smart and creative allocation of taxpayer funds, the right choices of what to regulate and making the technology easy to adopt and ship abroad.
“It is the duty of government to enable scientists to create new theories and empower engineers to put them into practice,” he said. “Prizes, advance market commitments, and other novel funding mechanisms, like fast and flexible grants, can multiply the impact of government-funded research.”
The new approach in promoting America’s gains will not come at the expense of securing its intellectual property, according to Mr. Kratsios.
He said the Trump administration will take research security seriously, prevent rival nations from infiltrating infrastructure and supply chains, and enforce export controls.
The Trump administration’s shift in approach was also evident in the speech’s physical location — Texas, not Silicon Valley. Texas is home to a burgeoning AI and autonomous tech boom with aspirations of joining the rush for new nuclear power.
Austin is home to a Tesla Gigafactory, and AI titan Nvidia is preparing to make its all “American-made AI supercomputers” at locations in Houston and Dallas. Nvidia said this week that production would accelerate in the next 12 to 15 months.
Mr. Kratsios tailored his message to the Texan audience of “builders and discoverers” and told them not to withdraw from politics as “burdensome regulation” had pushed them to do in recent years.
“There is no substitute for victory. You and your fellow Americans cannot afford to give up on this nation,” Mr. Kratsios said. “In a world so shaped by politics as well as technology, we must take action in both of these domains. We need all Americans to continue to rise to the occasion and to make full use of their talents, and to build.”
The Endless Frontiers Retreat was assembled by institutions such as the Council on Foreign Relations, University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, Baylor University, and Rice University, with sponsors including investors at America’s Frontier Fund, 8VC, and Overmatch.
