Latest news with #SpecialCompetitiveStudiesProject
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The AI lobby plants its flag in Washington
Top artificial intelligence companies are rapidly expanding their lobbying footprint in Washington — and so far, Washington is turning out to be a very soft target. Two privately held AI companies, OpenAI and Anthropic — which once positioned themselves as cautious, research-driven counterweights to aggressive Big Tech firms — are now adding Washington staff, ramping up their lobbying spending and chasing contracts from the estimated $75 billion federal IT budget, a significant portion of which now focuses on AI. They have company. Scale AI, a specialist contractor with the Pentagon and other agencies, is also planning to expand its government relations and lobbying teams, a spokesperson told POLITICO. In late March, the AI-focused chipmaking giant Nvidia registered its first in-house lobbyists. AI lobbyists are 'very visible' and 'very present on the hill,' said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) in an interview at the Special Competitive Studies Project AI+ Expo this week. 'They're nurturing relationships with lots of senators and a handful of members [of the House] in Congress. It's really important for their ambitions, their expectations of the future of AI, to have Congress involved, even if it's only to stop us from doing anything.' This lobbying push aims to capitalize on a wave of support from both the Trump administration and the Republican Congress, both of which have pumped up the AI industry as a linchpin of American competitiveness and a means for shrinking the federal workforce. They don't all present a unified front — Anthropic, in particular, has found itself at odds with conservatives, and on Thursday its CEO Dario Amodei broke with other companies by urging Congress to pass a national transparency standard for AI companies — but so far the AI lobby is broadly getting what it wants. 'The overarching ask is for no regulation or for light-touch regulation, and so far, they've gotten that," said Doug Calidas, senior vice president of government affairs for the AI policy nonprofit Americans for Responsible Innovation. In a sign of lawmakers' deference to industry, the House passed a ten-year freeze on enforcing state and local AI regulation as part of its megabill that is currently working through the Senate. Critics, however, worry that the AI conversation in Washington has become an overly tight loop between companies and their GOP supporters — muting important concerns about the growth of a powerful but hard-to-control technology. 'There's been a huge pivot for [AI companies] as the money has gotten closer,' Gary Marcus, an AI and cognitive science expert, said of the leading AI firms. 'The Trump administration is too chummy with the big tech companies, and basically ignoring what the American people want, which is protection from the many risks of AI.' Anthropic declined to comment for this story, referring POLITICO to its March submission to the AI Action Plan that the White House is crafting after President Donald Trump repealed a sprawling AI executive order issued by the Biden administration. OpenAI, too, declined to comment. This week several AI firms, including OpenAI, co-sponsored the Special Competitive Studies Project's AI+ Expo, an annual Washington trade show that has quickly emerged as a kind of bazaar for companies trying to sell services to the government. (Disclosure: POLITICO was a media partner of the conference.) They're jostling for influence against more established government contractors like Palantir, which has been steadily building up its lobbying presence in D.C. for years, while Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft — major tech platforms with AI as part of their pitch — already have dozens of lobbyists in their employ. What the AI lobby wants is a classic Washington twofer: fewer regulations to limit its growth, and more government contracts. The government budget for AI has been growing. Federal agencies across the board — from the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to the IRS and the Department of Veterans Affairs — are looking to build AI capacity. The Trump administration's staff cuts and automation push is expected to accelerate the demand for private firms to fill the gap with AI. For AI, 'growth' also demands energy and, on the policy front, AI companies have been a key driver of the recent push in Congress and the White House to open up new energy sources, streamline permitting for building new data centers and funnel private investment into the construction of these sites. Late last year, OpenAI released an infrastructure blueprint for the U.S. urging the federal government to prepare for a massive spike in demand for computational infrastructure and energy supply. Among its recommendations: creating special AI zones to fast-track permits for energy and data centers, expanding the national power grid and boosting government support for private investment in major energy projects. Those recommendations are now being very closely echoed by Trump administration figures. Last month, at the Bitcoin 2025 Conference in Las Vegas, David Sacks — Trump's AI and crypto czar — laid out a sweeping vision that mirrored the AI industry's lobbying goals. Speaking to a crowd of 35,000, Sacks stressed the foundational role of energy for both AI and cryptocurrency, saying bluntly: 'You need power.' He applauded President Donald Trump's push to expand domestic oil and gas production, framing it as essential to keeping the U.S. ahead in the global AI and crypto race. This is a huge turnaround from a year ago, when AI companies faced a very different landscape in Washington. The Biden administration, and many congressional Democrats, wanted to regulate the industry to guard against bias, job loss and existential risk. No longer. Since Trump's election, AI has become central to the conversation about global competition with China, with Silicon Valley venture capitalists like Sacks and Marc Andreessen now in positions of influence within the Trump orbit. Trump's director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy is Michael Kratsios, former managing director at Scale AI. Trump himself has proudly announced a series of massive Gulf investment deals in AI. Sacks, in his Las Vegas speech, pointed to those recent deal announcements as evidence of what he called a 'total comprehensive shift' in Washington's approach to emerging technologies. But as the U.S. throws its weight behind AI as a strategic asset, critics warn that the enthusiasm is muffling one of the most important conversations about AI: its ability to wreak unforeseen harm on the populace, from fairness to existential risk concerns. Among those concerns: bias embedded in algorithmic decisions that affect housing, policing, and hiring; surveillance that could threaten civil liberties; the erosion of copyright protections, as AI models hoover up data and labor protections as automation replaces human work. Kevin De Liban, founder of TechTonic Justice, a nonprofit that focuses on the impact of AI on low income communities, worries that Washington has abandoned its concerns for AI's impact on citizens. 'Big Tech gets fat government contracts, a testing ground for their technologies, and a liability-free regulatory environment,' he said, of Washington's current AI policy environment. 'Everyday people are left behind to deal with the fallout.' There's a much larger question, too, which dominated the early AI debate: whether cutting-edge AI systems can be controlled at all. These risks, long documented by researchers, are now taking a back seat in Washington as the conversation turns to economic advantage and global competition. There's also the very real concern that if an AI company does bring up the technology's worst-case scenarios, it may find itself at odds with the White House itself. Anthropic CEO Amodei said in a May interview that labor force disruptions due to AI would be severe — which triggered a direct attack from Sacks, Trump's AI czar, on his podcast, who said that line of thinking led to 'woke AI.' Still, both Anthropic and OpenAI are going full steam ahead. Anthropic hired nearly a dozen policy staffers in the last two months, while OpenAI similarly grew its policy office over the past year. They're also pushing to become more important federal contractors by getting critical FedRAMP authorizations — a federal program that certifies cloud services for use across government — which could unlock billions of dollars in contracts. As tech companies grow increasingly cozy with the government, the political will to regulate them is fading — and in fact, Congress appears hostile to any efforts to regulate them at all. In a public comment in March, OpenAI specifically asked the Trump administration for a voluntary federal framework that overrides state AI laws, seeking 'private sector relief' from a patchwork of state AI bills. Two months later, the House added language to its reconciliation bill that would have done exactly that — and more. The provision to impose a 10 year moratorium on state AI regulations passed the House but is expected to be knocked out by the Senate parliamentarian. (Breaking ranks again, Anthropic is lobbying against the moratorium.) Still, the provision has widespread support amongst Republicans and is likely to make a comeback.
Politico
18 hours ago
- Business
- Politico
The AI lobby plants its flag in Washington
Top artificial intelligence companies are rapidly expanding their lobbying footprint in Washington — and so far, Washington is turning out to be a very soft target. Two privately held AI companies, OpenAI and Anthropic — which once positioned themselves as cautious, research-driven counterweights to aggressive Big Tech firms — are now adding Washington staff, ramping up their lobbying spending and chasing contracts from the estimated $75 billion federal IT budget, a significant portion of which now focuses on AI. They have company. Scale AI, a specialist contractor with the Pentagon and other agencies, is also planning to expand its government relations and lobbying teams, a spokesperson told POLITICO. In late March, the AI-focused chipmaking giant Nvidia registered its first in-house lobbyists. AI lobbyists are 'very visible' and 'very present on the hill,' said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) in an interview at the Special Competitive Studies Project AI+ Expo this week. 'They're nurturing relationships with lots of senators and a handful of members [of the House] in Congress. It's really important for their ambitions, their expectations of the future of AI, to have Congress involved, even if it's only to stop us from doing anything.' This lobbying push aims to capitalize on a wave of support from both the Trump administration and the Republican Congress, both of which have pumped up the AI industry as a linchpin of American competitiveness and a means for shrinking the federal workforce. They don't all present a unified front — Anthropic, in particular, has found itself at odds with conservatives, and on Thursday its CEO Dario Amodei broke with other companies by urging Congress to pass a national transparency standard for AI companies — but so far the AI lobby is broadly getting what it wants. 'The overarching ask is for no regulation or for light-touch regulation, and so far, they've gotten that,' said Doug Calidas, senior vice president of government affairs for the AI policy nonprofit Americans for Responsible Innovation. In a sign of lawmakers' deference to industry, the House passed a ten-year freeze on enforcing state and local AI regulation as part of its megabill that is currently working through the Senate. Critics, however, worry that the AI conversation in Washington has become an overly tight loop between companies and their GOP supporters — muting important concerns about the growth of a powerful but hard-to-control technology. 'There's been a huge pivot for [AI companies] as the money has gotten closer,' Gary Marcus, an AI and cognitive science expert, said of the leading AI firms. 'The Trump administration is too chummy with the big tech companies, and basically ignoring what the American people want, which is protection from the many risks of AI.' Anthropic declined to comment for this story, referring POLITICO to its March submission to the AI Action Plan that the White House is crafting after President Donald Trump repealed a sprawling AI executive order issued by the Biden administration. OpenAI, too, declined to comment. This week several AI firms, including OpenAI, co-sponsored the Special Competitive Studies Project's AI+ Expo, an annual Washington trade show that has quickly emerged as a kind of bazaar for companies trying to sell services to the government. (Disclosure: POLITICO was a media partner of the conference.) They're jostling for influence against more established government contractors like Palantir, which has been steadily building up its lobbying presence in D.C. for years, while Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft — major tech platforms with AI as part of their pitch — already have dozens of lobbyists in their employ. What the AI lobby wants is a classic Washington twofer: fewer regulations to limit its growth, and more government contracts. The government budget for AI has been growing. Federal agencies across the board — from the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to the IRS and the Department of Veterans Affairs — are looking to build AI capacity. The Trump administration's staff cuts and automation push is expected to accelerate the demand for private firms to fill the gap with AI. For AI, 'growth' also demands energy and, on the policy front, AI companies have been a key driver of the recent push in Congress and the White House to open up new energy sources, streamline permitting for building new data centers and funnel private investment into the construction of these sites. Late last year, OpenAI released an infrastructure blueprint for the U.S. urging the federal government to prepare for a massive spike in demand for computational infrastructure and energy supply. Among its recommendations: creating special AI zones to fast-track permits for energy and data centers, expanding the national power grid and boosting government support for private investment in major energy projects. Those recommendations are now being very closely echoed by Trump administration figures. Last month, at the Bitcoin 2025 Conference in Las Vegas, David Sacks — Trump's AI and crypto czar — laid out a sweeping vision that mirrored the AI industry's lobbying goals. Speaking to a crowd of 35,000, Sacks stressed the foundational role of energy for both AI and cryptocurrency, saying bluntly: 'You need power.' He applauded President Donald Trump's push to expand domestic oil and gas production, framing it as essential to keeping the U.S. ahead in the global AI and crypto race. This is a huge turnaround from a year ago, when AI companies faced a very different landscape in Washington. The Biden administration, and many congressional Democrats, wanted to regulate the industry to guard against bias, job loss and existential risk. No longer. Since Trump's election, AI has become central to the conversation about global competition with China, with Silicon Valley venture capitalists like Sacks and Marc Andreessen now in positions of influence within the Trump orbit. Trump's director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy is Michael Kratsios, former managing director at Scale AI. Trump himself has proudly announced a series of massive Gulf investment deals in AI. Sacks, in his Las Vegas speech, pointed to those recent deal announcements as evidence of what he called a 'total comprehensive shift' in Washington's approach to emerging technologies. But as the U.S. throws its weight behind AI as a strategic asset, critics warn that the enthusiasm is muffling one of the most important conversations about AI: its ability to wreak unforeseen harm on the populace, from fairness to existential risk concerns. Among those concerns: bias embedded in algorithmic decisions that affect housing, policing, and hiring; surveillance that could threaten civil liberties; the erosion of copyright protections, as AI models hoover up data and labor protections as automation replaces human work. Kevin De Liban, founder of TechTonic Justice, a nonprofit that focuses on the impact of AI on low income communities, worries that Washington has abandoned its concerns for AI's impact on citizens. 'Big Tech gets fat government contracts, a testing ground for their technologies, and a liability-free regulatory environment,' he said, of Washington's current AI policy environment. 'Everyday people are left behind to deal with the fallout.' There's a much larger question, too, which dominated the early AI debate: whether cutting-edge AI systems can be controlled at all. These risks, long documented by researchers, are now taking a back seat in Washington as the conversation turns to economic advantage and global competition. There's also the very real concern that if an AI company does bring up the technology's worst-case scenarios, it may find itself at odds with the White House itself. Anthropic CEO Amodei said in a May interview that labor force disruptions due to AI would be severe — which triggered a direct attack from Sacks, Trump's AI czar, on his podcast, who said that line of thinking led to 'woke AI.' Still, both Anthropic and OpenAI are going full steam ahead. Anthropic hired nearly a dozen policy staffers in the last two months, while OpenAI similarly grew its policy office over the past year. They're also pushing to become more important federal contractors by getting critical FedRAMP authorizations — a federal program that certifies cloud services for use across government — which could unlock billions of dollars in contracts. As tech companies grow increasingly cozy with the government, the political will to regulate them is fading — and in fact, Congress appears hostile to any efforts to regulate them at all. In a public comment in March, OpenAI specifically asked the Trump administration for a voluntary federal framework that overrides state AI laws, seeking 'private sector relief' from a patchwork of state AI bills. Two months later, the House added language to its reconciliation bill that would have done exactly that — and more. The provision to impose a 10 year moratorium on state AI regulations passed the House but is expected to be knocked out by the Senate parliamentarian. (Breaking ranks again, Anthropic is lobbying against the moratorium.) Still, the provision has widespread support amongst Republicans and is likely to make a comeback.
The Star
a day ago
- Politics
- The Star
US Indo-Pacific commander calls PLA moves in strait ‘rehearsals', not exercises
The top US commander in the Pacific said on Monday that Beijing was on a 'dangerous course' and its operations around Taiwan were not mere exercises, but 'rehearsals'. 'We face a profoundly consequential time in the Indo-Pacific. China is on a dangerous course,' said Admiral Samuel Paparo, head of US Indo-Pacific Command, in a special address to an AI expo hosted by the Special Competitive Studies Project think tank. 'Their aggressive manoeuvres around Taiwan are not just exercises. They are rehearsals,' he continued, without explicitly referencing a potential takeover of Taiwan. Beijing regards the self-ruled island as part of China, to be reunited by force if necessary. Most countries, including the US, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take it by force and is committed to arming it. In recent years, the US has grown increasingly anxious about a mainland takeover, with officials and lawmakers eyeing 2027 as a possible window, and pointing to more frequent People's Liberation Army sorties that cross the Taiwan Strait's median line as signs of growing aggression. Tensions between Taiwan and mainland China have also grown in the year since Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te, whom Beijing has called a 'destroyer of peace', took office. Without naming specific countries, Paparo said on Monday that China's aggression was compounded by 'a growing transactional symbiosis among an axis of autocracies,' evidenced by 'technology transfers and coordinated military activities'. The US was at a 'technological inflection point' with advances in AI, hypersonic weapons and additive manufacturing, he said, calling for a change in course in favour of speed and innovation. 'We need engagement in the speed of combat, not committee,' Paparo said, adding that the scientific community and industry were essential to the 'urgent transformation' needed. Paparo, who assumed his command in May 2024, has made similar comments in recent months, previously naming China, Russia and North Korea as a 'triangle of troublemakers'. His remarks Monday came a day after the conclusion of the Shangri-La Dialogue, during which US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth called China a threat and said it wanted to 'fundamentally alter the region's status quo'. Beijing protested Hegseth's remarks, with the foreign ministry on Sunday accusing him of deliberately ignoring calls for peace from countries in the region. Hegseth did not meet his Chinese counterpart, Defence Minister Dong Jun, who opted to skip the annual security forum in Singapore. The Chinese embassy in Washington disputed Paparo's characterisation of Beijing's actions around Taiwan on Monday. 'For the cross-strait situation, there is no factor more destabilising than the provocations made by the 'Taiwan independence' separatists and the disruptions by foreign forces,' said spokesperson Liu Pengyu, adding that China's military 'drills' were meant to serve as a deterrent to 'separatist plots'. 'We urge the US side to stop fanning the flames on the Taiwan question. Such behaviours would only backfire,' he said.
Politico
4 days ago
- Business
- Politico
AI companies pitch Washington as cuts roil federal landscape
Presented by With help from Anthony Adragna The Walter E. Washington Convention Center was buzzing Tuesday as roughly 15,000 attendees swarmed the floors of the Special Competitive Studies Project's second annual AI+ Expo. Some 180 exhibitors showcased everything from fast-moving tactical drones to software that claims to decode geopolitical risk in real time. It was a snapshot of the massive wave of ambition around AI-based government contracting — dynamic, sprawling and deeply optimistic. But beneath the glitz of AI-powered warfighting tools and defense integration platforms, a more complicated story is emerging. There's a growing bifurcation in Washington's AI landscape, with defense agencies charging ahead and many civilian agencies stumbling in the wake of sweeping budget cuts and policy churn. The Pentagon is opening up newer, faster avenues for technological acquisition, confident about the growth of its purchasing budget. Meanwhile, civilian agencies are grappling with fallout from the work of the Department of Government Efficiency initiative, including staffing cuts, budget freezes, and uncertainties about their ability to buy and manage a complex new technology. 'It's really uncharted territory right now,' said Ben Edelman, who founded the AI business automation company EmberByte in Ashburn, Virginia. He attended SCSP to network and learn more about how to work with the government. 'They're still doing most of the cutting and trying to figure out what they don't want. So I imagine once they're done with that, they'll figure out what they do want,' he said. One exhibitor for a federal AI contractor put it bluntly: 'There's a lot of angst right now,' said the exhibitor, granted anonymity to speak freely. 'Everyone's asking, when will the dust settle? What will this look like after the DOGE cuts?' For one set of companies, AI looks like a way to stave off cutbacks. As the Trump administration targets the contracts of major government consulting firms, those companies are re-pitching themselves as AI implementation powerhouses. 'They're no longer just consultants. Now it's: 'We have AI products,' and they're partnering with startups and incubators, trying to evolve fast,' said the exhibitor, whose company works with consulting firms. Contractors for agencies like the Department of Health & Human Services and USAID, which have been the focus of DOGE cuts, have been particularly worried, the exhibitor said. By contrast, the Department of Defense is sending a much different signal. The exhibitors DFD talked to were convinced the boom in defense contracting for AI is just beginning. Under the Biden administration, the DOD requested $1.8 billion for AI programs in 2025; the Trump administration has yet to release details on its defense budget for next year. 'There's a lot of money going in there,' said Ron Wright, who staffed a booth of the Virginia-based business coalition National AI Association that he co-founded this year. Wright said the group has over 1,000 corporate members, many of them startups eager to contract with the DOD. On the non-defense side, Wright said his member companies were optimistic that DOGE would ultimately create government opportunities for contractors with experience in the commercial world. 'The next step for DOGE is going to be more and more analysis, using AI to improve productivity,' he said. 'It's no different from what's happening on the corporate side.' Despite the lack of clarity, walking the floor of SCSP was a testament to the perpetual optimism of the tech business world. But at least one contractor said implementing AI would require some work to build up federal contracting abilities, as agencies lose key technical talent needed to integrate AI into their operations. Joel Meyer, who leads public sector business at the enterprise AI company Domino Data Lab, said having a capable technology procurement force in the government is a 'necessity.' 'It's important that the contracting officer workforce be strengthened and trained to be able to accelerate the procurement of commercial cutting-edge technology,' said Meyer, who previously served as deputy assistant secretary for strategic initiatives at the Department of Homeland Security. 'I would very much like to see them doing more of that.' Pushback to state ai moratorium A bipartisan group of 260 state lawmakers from all 50 states is calling on Congress to drop a proposed 10-year moratorium on states enforcing their own laws to regulate artificial intelligence. 'The sweeping federal preemption provision in Congress's reconciliation bill would also overreach to halt a broad array of laws elected officials have already passed to address pressing digital issues,' the lawmakers wrote in the letter Tuesday. Their push follows a mid-May effort from 40 state attorneys general who also called on Congress to jettison the moratorium from the megabill, which passed the House last month. The state lawmaker letter comes as senators prepare arguments under the so-called 'Byrd bath', a process for determining if provisions in the party-line reconciliation bill have a budgetary effect or have to be dropped. GOP senators are largely supportive of the moratorium but are skeptical it will survive the Byrd rule. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) hailed the new bipartisan push on the Senate floor Tuesday. 'These state leaders are right: This provision would be devastating for our country,' Markey said. Palantir pushes back Palantir is pushing back on a report from The New York Times that the data analysis and technology firm is working with the Trump administration to gather information on Americans. 'Palantir never collects data to unlawfully surveil Americans, and our Foundry platform employs granular security protections. If the facts were on its side, the New York Times would not have needed to twist the truth,' the company wrote in a post on X Tuesday. Trump signed an executive order in March calling on federal agencies to expand efforts to share data across the government, raising concern doing so might expand surveillance abilities to new heights. The Times reported that the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon are working with Palantir, while the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service are in talks with the company. The New York Times did not respond to request for comment. post of the day THE FUTURE IN 5 LINKS Stay in touch with the whole team: Mohar Chatterjee (mchatterjee@ Steve Heuser (sheuser@ Nate Robson (nrobson@ and Daniella Cheslow (dcheslow@
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Pentagon prize challenge seeks ‘ready-now' uncrewed systems
In a push to get military kit to the field more quickly, the Defense Innovation Unit is launching a prize challenge called Project G.I. to help the military services test and scale uncrewed systems. DIU on Monday released a solicitation for the effort, calling for companies to proposed 'ready-now' uncrewed systems that can help increase the effectiveness of small military cells operating in low-bandwidth environments with disrupted communications. 'Solutions should fundamentally improve how tactical formations sense, decide and strike, independent of consistent communication or extensive logistical support,' DIU said. DIU is establishing a $20 million prize pool for Project G.I., and the solicitation will stay open through the end of the year on a rolling basis. Companies whose systems are selected will participate in a live demonstration with military operators. Based on user feedback, DIU will choose vendors to move into the next phase where they'll either receive cash prizes to invest in maturing their systems, be awarded procurement contracts to deliver their capabilities to military units for further testing and training or be issued a contract for further prototyping. Speaking Monday at the Special Competitive Studies Project's AI Expo in Washington, D.C., DIU Director Doug Beck said the intent of Project G.I. is to get systems to operators more quickly by testing them in a live operational test environment. The project gives users a chance to 'test, plan and learn' and provide feedback that can be quickly implemented and re-tested, he said. Project G.I. also allows the services to take advantage of DIU's flexible funding and bypass a budget cycle that can take years to wade through. 'DIU is laser focused on getting best-of-breed technology in the hands of the warfighter today and scaling it for training, adoption, and readiness,' Beck said in a statement. 'Doing this at speed will in turn help catalyze the necessary scaling and readiness through major acquisition and training efforts across the services that will deliver strategic impact — and will simultaneously support the flywheel of American private sector dynamism in delivering against that strategic need.' The first Project G.I. demonstration will be with the Army in U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, but Beck said DIU is partnering with the other services as well.
