According to Reuters, executives from US AI giant OpenAI, Microsoft, AMD and artificial intelligence cloud service company CoreWeave testified at a US Senate hearing on Thursday. They said that while the US is ahead in the AI race, the government needs to strengthen infrastructure construction and support the export of AI chips to stay ahead of China.
After Deepseek shocked the world last year with its cost-efficient large-scale model, the US Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Republican Senator Ted Cruz, is seeking to reduce regulatory barriers to AI development in the US.
"Whether the US or China wins this race will depend largely on which technology is more widely adopted around the world," said Microsoft President Brad Smith, who has banned his employees from using Deepseek.
"The lesson from Huawei's lead in 5G networks is that it's hard to replace the company that dominates the market first," Smith said.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and AMD CEO Lisa Su also testified at the hearing.
Altman said at the hearing that he expects U.S. innovation to accelerate societal progress in AI in the coming years, but that "investment in infrastructure is key." This infrastructure ranges from data centers to house more servers to power plants to run the energy-intensive calculations required for AI.
In addition, Microsoft's Smith also called for strengthening AI-related education to accelerate the spread of AI, developing more electrical engineering talent, and supporting AI research and development.