Can America Stay Ahead in AI?

On the day the new Administration took office, DeepSeek—a compelling, cheap, Chinese AI assistant—launched in America and caused big waves in the world of artificial intelligence.

The US is competing with China and Europe to be the leader in AI in all its forms and functions. A key lever in this race was the previous Administration’s ban on the export of advanced technology and chips to China. DeepSeek just found a way around that, producing a powerful tool at one-twentieth the cost of rivals like OpenAI and with relatively few Nvidia chips.

The race is on, and the federal government is laser-focused on the challenge.

What’s in the order: The executive order Removing Barriers to American Leadership in AI sets out an agile sprint for leaders across executive departments to come up with a strategic plan to maintain or restore US leadership of the “space race in AI.” It will also rescind previous orders that are deemed to be barriers to innovation within 60 days.

What this means for companies:

In 60 days, orders around AI safety and crypto will almost certainly be changed. Companies should immediately plan for how this will impact operations both with the opening up of opportunities and the need for security.
In hand with this order, the President also announced a $500 billion investment fund, Stargate, for the largest AI infrastructure project in history. Companies should monitor this development and identify how they can be a part of it.
The most obvious implication is that competition will bring down AI costs and speed up innovation. Companies must prepare their teams to monitor the latest developments and tools on a daily basis and identify how to take advantage.

The TCB take: In our C-Suite Outlook 2025 survey, 91% of executives globally said they were actively using AI. Notably, that proportion was highest in China and India—both at 98%—and lowest in the US, at 84%. Accelerating AI investment is key: While moving with caution and waiting for costs to fall is one strategy, it is not the best one in light of the intensifying global competition. Companies must identify their business opportunities, ask how/if AI can help, and plan for implementation at speed.