WASHINGTON — Over the past two years, the Biden administration struck a careful balance on artificial intelligence. The White House took steps to ensure the U.S. stayed ahead of China in developing the technology while also trying to address some of AI’s many potential risks.

In his first 24 hours back in Washington, Donald Trump sent a different message to the AI community: Just build.

On Monday, Trump rescinded Biden’s sweeping executive order on AI. The move immediately halted the implementation of key safety and transparency requirements for AI developers. Some tech leaders attending the World Economic Forum in Davos praised his approach. Other experts warned against an AI world with fewer guardrails. Trump is expected to issue a new executive order on AI, but with a lighter touch.

On Tuesday, Trump announced a joint venture led by SoftBank Group Corp., OpenAI and Oracle Corp. that will fund billions of dollars worth of AI infrastructure. To unveil the project, Trump was joined by Softbank's Masayoshi Son and tech executives including Sam Altman and Larry Ellison. The venture will deploy $100 billion “immediately,” Son said, with the goal of increasing to “at least” $500 billion in AI projects, including data centers and physical campuses. Son touted the joint venture as “the beginning of a golden age.”

Ellison said data centers are currently under construction, including one in Abilene, Texas.

On the eve of taking office, Trump said that he would pave the way for “people with a lot of money” to invest in so-called “AI plants” to power data centers for artificial intelligence — with little concern for whether those energy sources are good or bad for the environment.

With these early efforts, Trump is not only rethinking the U.S. approach to AI but also moving further from Europe, setting up a clash of continents over how best to regulate AI and compete with China. The EU previously unnerved some leading AI companies by enacting tougher tech legislation on privacy and safety. By comparison, the Trump team has brought in prominent tech figures, including billionaire Elon Musk and venture capitalist David Sacks, to help shape its tech and AI policies.

Exactly how hands-off Trump’s AI strategy ends up being may depend in part on Musk's role in influencing it. Musk has long held a nuanced view of the technology. While Musk has invested in AI through his startup, xAI, he’s also repeatedly warned that it poses an existential threat if not contained.

A warm reception at Davos

“It seems clear that the new administration is going to be encouraging of tech and tech growth,” Demis Hassabis, chief executive officer of Google DeepMind, said in an interview with Bloomberg News in Davos on Tuesday. “The administration is getting advice from the people who really understand what’s happening at the cutting edge.”

Hassabis was one of many tech leaders in Davos who sounded cautiously optimistic about the early days of Trump’s second term and its implications for AI development.

OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar told Bloomberg News that the Trump administration has already shown “a real willingness to lean in” and “be very on the economic front foot” when it comes to technology and AI. Likewise, Alphabet Inc. President Ruth Porat said Trump’s team wants to “clear away some of the impediments to investing” in data centers and other infrastructure needed for AI.

“There is a tremendous amount of opportunity to continue working with them,” Porat said.

Less focus on clean energy

In recent months, OpenAI and other companies urged the Biden administration to pave the way for unprecedented investments in data centers and energy sources. OpenAI, in particular, called for massive 5 gigawatt data centers — large enough to power entire cities.

Last week, Biden signed an executive order directing federal agencies to lease government land for AI data centers, emphasizing the use of clean energy sources. Asked on Tuesday whether he would rescind that order, Trump said, “no, I wouldn’t do that. That sounds to me like it’s something that I would like.”

Even so, Trump is likely to relax the clean energy requirements, said Joseph Majkut, director of the energy security and climate change program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. After touting future AI investment at a rally over the weekend, Trump said his administration would cut the “environmental regulations that are really put in there in order to stop progress in this country.”

If so, the Trump administration may put the onus on tech companies to decide their own comfort level with relying more on fossil fuels. In the race to build more power-hungry data centers for AI, Microsoft Corp. and Google have already seen their ambitious climate pledges slip out of reach.

“The key issues to watch are the extent to which the hyper-scaling companies are comfortable with powering new data centers with high-emission power because they have their own climate goals and their own reputation to maintain,” Majkut said.

Competing with China

For the Trump administration, and possibly many in the AI industry, climate and safety concerns rank behind a fear of being outcompeted by China.

At Davos, Alphabet’s Porat said it’s not “a foregone conclusion” that the U.S. will maintain a lead over China in developing more sophisticated AI systems. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s Friar said China is “absolutely investing in this area” and understands how critical AI is to their economy and security. “We should not be naive on that front,” she said.

As if to underscore that concern, DeepSeek, a Chinese startup, unveiled an updated AI model this week that it says is competitive with OpenAI’s technology. The company’s founder also appeared at a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, according to the South China Morning Post.

“In the past month alone we have seen very powerful advances in China’s AI capabilities relative to our government,” Alexandr Wang, founder and CEO of Scale AI, a data labeling startup, wrote in an open letter to Trump on Tuesday about winning the “AI war.” Wang added: “You have the right team in place to take on this challenge and ensure we maintain our lead against adversaries.”

Some industry watchers worry about the unintended consequences of winning that battle, however.

“This is setting the U.S. up for short-term gain but long-term pain,” said Frank Pasquale, a law professor at Cornell Tech and Cornell Law School. “Trump is clearing a path for more investment in artificial intelligence where there’s less risk of regulation,” he said, but “there was a lot of good reason to have guardrails in place.”

The goal, Pasquale said, “was to help guide companies away from building unsafe products.” Now, the U.S government may be leaving it to the companies to decide for themselves.

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(With assistance from Mark Niquette.)

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