The writer is co-founder and chief investment strategist at Absolute Strategy Research
“The United States is in a race to achieve global dominance in artificial intelligence.” These are the opening words of the White House’s AI action plan that is based on accelerating innovation, building AI infrastructure and leading in international diplomacy and security.
For the Trump administration, winning in AI is clearly at the heart of the battle for the 21st century and keeping the US as one of the leading (and richest) global economies. It is key to offsetting the productivity drag from worsening demographics. US trend productivity has slowed from a rise of more than 2.5 per cent a year in the 1960s, to about 1.5 per cent a year in the past 20 years. And US demographics will probably put further downward pressure on productivity, without labour-enhancing technological change.