For the past 80 years, America has led the world in innovation, driving global progress through our technology, talent and values. But the latest “Annual Threat Assessment” report by the U.S. intelligence community finds that China is now our top strategic competitor and technology is a central battleground. To win that tech race, the U.S. needs a full-scale innovation strategy that ensures American leadership in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, semiconductors and clean energy.
Since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012, China has been maniacally focused on winning this tech race through a series of comprehensive, state-driven strategies. These include: “Made in China 2025” to dominate advanced manufacturing; “Internet Plus Plan” to accelerate semiconductor growth, cyber strength and drive high-tech innovation; “New Generation AI Development Plan” to lead in AI by 2030; and “China Standards 2035 Plan” to control global rules for next-generation technologies. What’s more, the Chinese Communist Party is investing trillions of dollars in these strategies, building national champions, subsidizing research and embedding Chinese tech into global supply chains.
By contrast, America’s approach has been piecemeal. But we need a coordinated national effort — a modern-day moonshot — because the race for tech leadership isn’t just about economic growth; it’s about national security, global influence and which values will shape the digital future. To seize this moment, lawmakers must embrace a bold, five-part strategy to supercharge American innovation, protect our tech edge and win the race against China.
While innovation spans many technologies, this agenda focuses on AI because it is the linchpin of future economic, geopolitical and technological leadership. 1. An American innovation strategy We need a national framework that aligns private-sector investment with federal research and development, supports technologies like AI, semiconductors and quantum and removes bottlenecks to scale.
Additionally, over-regulation is just as damaging as under-investment. In 2025 alone, 956 AI-related bills were introduced across federal and state levels — nearly a five-fold increase in just two years. That kind of legislative tsunami risks stifling innovation and inadvertently handing China a strategic edge.
Instead, lawmakers must embrace a light-touch, pro-growth approach that evaluates every bill through the lens of U.S. competitiveness and avoids a patchwork of conflicting federal and state rules. 2. Energy and transmission strategy America’s aging energy infrastructure can’t keep up with demand.
Seventy percent of transmission lines are more than 25 years old and 12,000 ready-to-go energy projects are stalled awaiting grid connection. Meanwhile, China has built 30,000 miles of ultra-high-voltage transmission lines and invested $442 billion in grid modernization. To lead in AI, energy must be treated as a national security issue.
That means expanding energy sources, strengthening grid capacity, streamlining permits and expanding public-private partnerships to address cyber threats. 3. Data strategy Data is the lifeblood of AI, but America’s cumbersome legal framework risks slowing innovation.
At least 30 major copyright lawsuits have been filed against generative AI companies. Without clear, pro-innovation rules for data access and copyright, U.S. developers’ risk being buried under a blizzard of litigation while China charges ahead. If we want to lead, America must modernize our legal system, provide reasonable copyright protection and give innovators freedom to build the future.
4. Adoption and distribution strategy America invented modern AI, but China is working overtime to overtake us. It is rapidly deploying AI at home and leveraging its Belt and Road Initiative (spanning 155 countries and cities) to embed authoritarian-based AI systems into critical infrastructure and industries.
To counter this, the U.S. must accelerate adoption of open- and closed-source AI across all sectors — manufacturing, health care, defense and more — while helping allies adopt trusted, U.S.-aligned technologies before China’s take root. Scaling and exporting American AI is how we shape global standards, protect democratic values and stay ahead. 5.
Talent strategy Despite having world-class hardware and software, America could still lose the tech race if we don’t have the skilled personnel to build, operate and safeguard these systems. China is investing heavily in people power, creating more than 2,300 AI-focused academic programs since 2018 and funding more than 11,000 vocational/technical schools with nearly 35 million students enrolled. Meanwhile, the U.S. produces 2.5 million fewer science, technology, engineering and math graduates each year than China, has 750,000 unfilled cybersecurity jobs and potentially 1.9 million unfilled manufacturing positions by 2033.
This growing skills gap is a direct threat to our competitiveness. We must double STEM graduates, expand skilled trades education and create faster pathways into tech careers, especially in communities left behind by globalization. To truly ensure that the global future is American-made, policymakers in both parties must embrace an innovation strategy — anchored in American values and powered by our people — that builds now, attracts and develops top talent, and inspires the world.
China is playing to win. It’s time we did the same. Kent Conrad represented North Dakota in the Senate from 1986 to 2013 as a Democrat.
Saxby Chambliss represented Georgia in the Senate from 2003 to 2015 as a Republican. Both serve as advisers to the American Edge Project.
