The White House’s top technology official says AI is now powering a major share of America’s strong economic expansion.
In a new post on X, crypto and AI czar David Sacks says artificial intelligence is responsible for nearly half of the nation’s current growth.
“GDP growth is currently an outstanding 3.9%, and AI is 40% of that. It’s easy for politicians to posture and grandstand by beating up on tech. But the real question is whether they want 4% growth rates or 2% growth rates.”
Data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis shows that the US economy grew by about 2.8% in 2024 and 2.9% in 2023, marking the current growth rate at the high side of recent trend levels.
Speaking at Dreamforce 2025, Sacks says the stakes around AI are both economic and geopolitical, naming China as America’s number one rival.
“The US is currently in an AI race, and our chief global competition is China, obviously. They’re the only other country that has the talent, the resources, and the technology expertise to basically beat us in AI.
And I think whoever wins this AI race, that’s going to have tremendous ramifications for both our economy and our national security. Clearly, we want the US to be the winner, just like we were with the internet, and every other technology revolution before that.”
To win the competition, Sacks says the US government needs to get out of the way of private sector innovation.
“We know that to win this AI race, we have to be the most innovative. You can’t regulate your way just to beating your competitor. You have to out-innovate them. And we know that in the United States, the innovation comes from the private sector, not the government. So we have to do everything we can to help our companies win, to help them be innovative, and that means getting a lot of red tape out of the way.”
As for what the government can do to aid the AI push, Sacks says the administration should double down on its efforts to support investments in energy and infrastructure.
“We have to have the most AI infrastructure in the US. It has to be the easiest place to build it. All of the new data centers that are going in, they require tremendous power, so getting ahead of the curve on energy, making sure we stand up all of this new infrastructure we’re going to need to basically produce these AI factories.”
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