America Is Blowing the AI Race


AXDAVID AI Weekly

America Is Blowing the AI Race – But It’s Not Too Late

Axios co-founder and CEO Jim VandeHei has a stark warning in his new WSJ essay: The U.S. is squandering its lead in the defining technology of our time.

We’re about to pour $1 trillion a year into AI — matching the combined cost of the Manhattan Project, Apollo program, Interstate Highway System, and Human Genome Project. The stakes? Global economic dominance, military superiority, space control, and shaping super-intelligent tech that could surpass humanity.

Yet government, business, schools, and families aren’t aligned. VandeHei calls out the dysfunction and offers 7 practical ideas to get America back on track before China (or others) pulls ahead. The window for dominance is narrowing fast — but it’s still open.

Key takeaway: This is a generational challenge. We need urgent, coordinated action across society to win it.

What do you think — is the U.S. moving fast enough on AI? Drop your thoughts below.

From left: Bofors guns lined up in Akron, Ohio in 1944; Mildred Parsons with Burleon Kerr and Frances Wilson working on a B24 bomber in 1943; Apollo 13's Saturn V rocket in 1970, launching from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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