Microsoft promotes American-first AI

Microsoft sees itself on track to invest around $80 billion in the construction of new data centers in the 2025 fiscal year, ending June 30. According to a blog post by Microsoft President and General Counsel Brad Smith, the data centers will primarily be used to train AI models and operate AI and other cloud applications. Microsoft plans to make more than half of the planned investments in new facilities in the US — “reflecting our commitment to this country and our confidence in the American economy,” Smith wrote. 

In view of the upcoming second presidency of Donald Trump, the Microsoft executive’s announcement struck a much more nationalistic tone. Smith spoke explicitly about American AI, which should be exported to allies and friends. With the new president in the White House, Smith sees “a golden opportunity for American technology and economic competitiveness.” 

In his post, Smith described artificial intelligence as the “electricity of our age,” going on to write that “the next four years can build a foundation for America’s economic success for the next quarter century.” In this context, Smith referred to the fundamental ideas Trump laid down for AI policy during his first presidency. 

On Feb. 11, 2019, Trump signed the executive order “Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence.” Section 1 of the order stated: “Continued American leadership in AI is of paramount importance to maintaining the economic and national security of the United States and to shaping the global evolution of AI in a manner consistent with our Nation’s values, policies, and priorities.”

Microsoft appears to be hoping that Trump has not forgotten this decree. According to Microsoft’s Smith, Trump’s previous executive order “rightly focused on federal investments in AI research and making federal data and computing resources more accessible.” He is now calling on Trump and Congress to “expand on these efforts to support advancing America’s AI leadership.”

In addition, Microsoft is concerned with promoting American AI exports. In his 2019 order, Trump emphasized the need to promote an international environment that “opens markets for American AI industries, while protecting our technological advantage in AI and protecting our critical AI technologies from acquisition by strategic competitors and adversarial nations,” Smith highlighted the executive order as stating.

American AI vs. China AI 

In his blog, Smith describes a scenario in which the US must compete with Chinese AI ambitions. Here, international influence is a key factor, Smith writes.

“China is starting to offer developing countries subsidized access to scarce chips, and it’s promising to build local AI datacenters. The Chinese wisely recognize that if a country standardizes on China’s AI platform, it likely will continue to rely on that platform in the future,” he writes.

Smith adopts a combative tone when he concludes: “This will require that we move quickly and effectively to promote American AI as a superior alternative. And it will need the involvement and support of American allies and friends.”

To this end, the Microsoft exec referred to the company’s announced plan to invest more than $35 billion in 14 countries within three years “to build trusted and secure AI and cloud datacenter infrastructure.” According to Smith, Microsoft’s global infrastructure now reaches 40 countries, including the global south, “including in the Global South, where China has frequently focused so many of its Belt and Road investments.”

To build on this, Smith is calling for more political support, writing, “the most important U.S. public policy priority should be to ensure that the U.S. private sector can continue to advance with the wind at its back.” The United States can’t afford to “slow its own private sector with heavy-handed regulations,” Smith adds, calling for a “pragmatic export control policy.” After all, the aim is to “expand rapidly and provide a reliable source of supply to the many countries that are American allies and friends.” 

Europe between IT dependence and the desire for sovereignty

Whether these allies and friends will join in the AI ​​game outlined by Smith is questionable, however, despite Microsoft publicly announcing billions in investments in European infrastructure last year, including €3.2 billion in Germany. With the AI ​​Act, the EU has passed a set of rules that prescribes clear guidelines for the use of AI in Europe. AI lobbyists are currently haggling over the final wording to pull the teeth out of the regulation in the interests of their own business. 

Much will also depend on how US economic policy as a whole will develop over the next four years under Trump. Protectionism, such as that promoted by Trump during his first presidency, is more likely to lead to European countries paying more attention to their own sovereignty — especially in the digital sector. Whether this will succeed is another matter, however, given the failures of the past years and decades.