Behind the Curtain: The Great Fusing

The U.S. government needs AI expertise and dominance to beat China to the next big technological and geopolitical shift — but can't pull this off without the help of Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, Nvidia and many others.

• These companies can't scale AI, and reap trillions in value, without government helping ease the way with more energy, more data, more chips and more precious minerals. These are the essential ingredients of superhuman intelligence.

The big picture: Under President Trump, both are getting what they want, as reported by Axios' Zachary Basu:

1. The White House has cultivated a deep relationship with America's AI giants — championing the $500 billion "Stargate" infrastructure initiative led by OpenAI, Oracle, Japan's SoftBank, and the UAE's MGX.

• Trump was joined by top AI executives — including OpenAI's Sam Altman, Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Amazon's Andy Jassy and Palantir's Alex Karp — during his whirlwind tour of the Middle East this month.
• Trump sought to fuse U.S. tech ambitions with Gulf sovereign wealth, announcing a cascade of deals to bring cutting-edge chips and data centers to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
• Trump and his tech allies envision a geopolitical alliance to outpace China, flood the globe with American AI, and cement control over the energy and data pipelines of the future.

2. Back at home, the Trump administration is downplaying the risks posed by AI to American workers, and eliminating regulatory obstacles to quicker deployment of AI.

• Trump signed a series of executive orders last week to hasten the deployment of new nuclear power reactors, with the goal of quadrupling total U.S. nuclear capacity by 2050.
• Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Congress that AI is "the next Manhattan Project" — warning that losing to China is "not an option" and that government must "get out of the way."
• The House version of Trump's "One Big, Beautiful Bill," which passed last week, would impose a 10-year ban on any state and local laws that regulate AI.
• AI companies big and small are winning the U.S. government's most lucrative contracts — especially at the Pentagon, where they're displacing legacy contractors as the beating heart of the military-industrial complex.

Between the lines: Lost in the rush to win the AI arms race is any real public discussion of the rising risks.

• The risk of Middle East nations and companies, empowered with U.S. AI technology, helping their other ally, China, in this arms race.
• The possibility, if not likelihood, of massive white-collar job losses as companies shift from humans to AI agents.
• The dangers of the U.S. government becoming so reliant on a small set of companies.

• The vulnerabilities of private data on U.S. citizens.

Zoom in: The Great Fusing has created a new class of middlemen — venture capitalists, founders and influencers who shuttle between Silicon Valley and Washington, shaping policy while still reaping tech's profits.

• Elon Musk could become the government's main supplier of space rockets, satellites, internet connectivity, robots and other autonomous technologies. And with what he's learned via DOGE, Musk's xAI is well-positioned to package AI products and then sell them back to the U.S. government.
• David Sacks, Trump's AI and crypto czar, acts as the premier translator between the two worlds — running point on policy, deals, and narrative through his government role, tech network, and popular "All-In" podcast.
• Marc Andreessen, whose VC firm Andreessen Horowitz has stakes in nearly every major AI startup, has been a chief evangelist of the pro-acceleration doctrine at the core of Trump's AI agenda.

Reality check: The Great Fusing has been led more by Silicon Valley iconoclasts (Musk) than the incumbent stalwarts (including Mark Zuckerberg), who have rushed to align with the emerging gravitational pull.

Tech-education nexus: Silicon Valley, facing a new race for AI engineers, cheered during the campaign when Trump floated automatic green cards for foreign students who graduated from U.S. colleges. But so far, tech moguls have been relatively quiet as Trump halted all student visa interviews and tried to ban international matriculation to Harvard.

New defense reality: Palantir, Anduril and other advanced defense tech companies have more Pentagon traction than ever, robotics companies are surging and entire industries are being born — including undersea drones and space-based weapons.

• Axios' Dan Primack and Zachary Basu contributed reporting.

Go deeper: "Behind the Curtain: A white-collar bloodbath."