OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman says the United States faces several risks that could weaken its position on the global stage.
In an interview at BlackRock’s US Infrastructure Summit, Altman warns that infrastructure constraints and global competition could threaten America’s position in the AI race.
He says one of his biggest concerns is whether the country can maintain the physical infrastructure needed to build and run large-scale AI systems.
“There’s been a ton of noise made about the global supply chain dependence and US infrastructure. I don’t have anything new or deep to say there, but I can’t overstate how scary this is to me. If we fall behind on infrastructure and can’t catch back up, if globalization falls apart in any of the many ways it could, and we are not able to fairly independently keep building AI infrastructure, that seems like a big vulnerability, and I don’t hate, but I don’t love our global position right now.”
He also warns that the pace of AI adoption across the economy could determine whether the United States maintains its competitive edge.
“The second is if we don’t, it’s a competitive world, and if we don’t move as quickly as other countries on economic adoption of this, then I think we will lose the advantage that we have from being the economic powerhouse that we are. And this is about how quickly companies adopt it. This is about how quickly our scientists adopt it. This is how quickly our government adopts it…
I don’t think it’s super obvious that we’re on the trajectory we want to be on now. Again, I don’t hate it. I just think it could move faster.”
According to Altman, the development and adoption of AI in the US is facing growing political and public resistance.
“AI is not very popular in the US right now. Data centers are getting blamed for electricity price hikes. Almost every company that does layoffs is blaming AI, whether or not it really is about AI.
There is this real debate about the relative power between governments and companies going on.”
Altman also warns that global policy decisions could shape whether American AI technologies become the foundation for worldwide systems.
“And then the third category is diffusion into the rest of the world. Is the world mostly going to build on the American AI tech stack, chips, models, applications, whatever, or are we going to enact a set of policies that make that harder?”
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