President Trump was due to announce on Oct. 8, at a Washington science summit, up to $2.4 billion in AI tools and computing pledges from Nvidia, AMD, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and others. The same day, immigration tensions between the government and Big Tech also surfaced.
Taiwan’s Liberty Times, citing Bloomberg, reported that Trump was expected to announce at a Washington summit on Oct. 8 that he had secured up to $2.4 billion in funding commitments from Silicon Valley companies to support scientific research. It is the latest step in the administration’s push to adopt and promote artificial intelligence; the event was titled “Science: A New Golden Age”.
광고 문의 · 300×250The White House says the money will come as AI tools and computing credits for the “Genesis Mission”, an initiative to speed up research with AI that involves more than 15 federal agencies. The reported pledges are Nvidia $1 billion, AMD $500 million, OpenAI $200 million, Anthropic $150 million and Google (Alphabet) $150 million. Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said the plan would inject billions of dollars into the nation’s science ecosystem.
Medals and visa suspensions on the same day
The administration also planned a set of tech initiatives, including more than $100 million for education programs for US STEM researchers. The National Medal of Science went to Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Alphabet co-founder Sergey Brin and AMD CEO Lisa Su, and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell. Given heavy demand for hyperscale cloud and high computing costs, the report notes it is unclear how the promised computing power will be set aside for scientists.
Relations between the industry and the White House are strained over immigration. On the very day Trump planned to honor Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Vice President JD Vance and Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling announced the suspension of Microsoft and other companies from a visa program over alleged fraud. The firms named were Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini. The program lets employers help foreign workers apply for permanent residency. The government has pressed tech firms to rely less on foreign labor and train and hire more Americans, including through limits on H-1B visas.
Even so, the industry generally sees Trump as a supporter, citing lighter tax and regulatory burdens and a faster AI infrastructure buildout. Political risks remain. The report says Trump, who now calls AI “superintelligence”, is promoting it hard, yet ahead of the November midterms voters are frustrated by high living costs and the Iran war, many communities oppose data centers over energy bills and water strain, and people worry about AI’s effect on jobs.
Trump favors light regulation, dismisses AI safety concerns as a hoax and warns that tighter limits would let China win the AI race. Whether the pledges turn into real research results will depend on how the money is spent and how computing is allocated.
