At a Senate Subcommittee on Science, Manufacturing, and Competitiveness hearing, Chairman Ted Budd (R-N.C.) addressed the importance of advancing artificial intelligence (AI) innovation and infrastructure in the United States. In his opening statement, Budd emphasized avoiding excessive regulation while encouraging a free-market approach to technology development.
Budd highlighted the need for U.S. leadership in AI to maintain economic growth and competitiveness against countries like China. He pointed out that American innovation has historically driven job creation, wage increases, and productivity gains. The senator stated that general-purpose technologies such as AI could play a similar transformative role as previous innovations like the internet.
“This morning is the first hearing of the Subcommittee on Science, Manufacturing, and Competitiveness this Congress. I want to thank Ranking Member Baldwin for her help with getting this hearing on the calendar. Our subcommittee has a wide jurisdiction over issues central to creating good paying jobs, expanding economic opportunity, and maintaining America’s competitive edge. I am looking forward to working with her the rest of this Congress to hold hearings on other important topics.
“Director Kratsios, thank you for being here today. I am very excited about America’s AI Action Plan and to hear your perspective on how we can work collaboratively between the Trump administration and Congress to accelerate AI innovation, build American AI infrastructure, and lead internationally in cooperation with allies and partners.
“Personally, I am also excited about what the future holds with the acceleration of AI adoption.
“If developed, deployed, and employed properly, AI stands to enable Americans to make the most and the best of themselves on a daily basis. We must ensure that our AI policy is anchored in maximizing economic opportunity for Americans.
“I am not talking about billionaires in Silicon Valley.
“I am talking about everyday Americans waking up and going to work in family-sustaining careers enhanced by AI, not replaced by it.
“U.S. leadership in technological innovation has been the accelerator that has boosted our economy and growth rates ahead of the rest of the world. General-purpose technologies—like the internet—ushered in sustained years of economic growth, wage gains, new jobs, and increased productivity.
“Critically, U.S. leadership allowed for the open internet and the ecosystem built around it to reflect our national character of entrepreneurship and free expression.
“AI offers similar opportunities as a transformative general-purpose technology. AI, for instance, offers a real chance to help achieve the economic success and enhanced productivity we need to grow our way out of the unsustainable debt path we are on.
“As your AI Action Plan rightly points out, the competition is fierce.
“The Trump Administration has made American AI leadership a day-one priority, as President Trump rescinded President Biden’s AI Executive Order, which many feared was an over-regulatory, European Union-styled approach that would suffocate innovation and startups while ceding important ground to adversarial nations like China.
“The PRC has put forward plans to leverage state resources and capital to make China the global leader in AI by 2030. Through their top-down statist economic model, the PRC wants to direct capital and resources to favored firms to embed AI across industries including in manufacturing agriculture robotics and services. AI is a fast-changing dynamic field; industrial policies that might have worked for electric vehicles or solar panels are not guaranteed here.
“I firmly believe that our country’s free-market private sector-led way will be key to remaining ahead of Chinese state-backed developers.”
Budd expressed support for legislative measures such as Chairman Cruz’s proposed “AI regulatory sandbox” bill intended to foster innovation by providing regulatory clarity for companies developing new technologies.
He also called attention to challenges related to building domestic capacity in areas like semiconductors and fiber optic cables—key components needed for expanding American technological infrastructure—and suggested permitting reform could help avoid delays due to energy production constraints.
Budd concluded by stating: “The U.S. has all necessary ingredients keep our lead definitively win race look forward working Trump administration colleagues put Action Plan work.”
