Before he had been in office for 48 hours, President Donald Trump sent a clear signal that to outpace China, his administration will be pursuing an aggressive agenda when it comes to pushing the United States forward on the development of artificial intelligence and the infrastructure that powers it.

On his first day in office, Trump rescinded an executive order signed in 2023 by former President Joe Biden that sought to place some guardrails around the development of more and more powerful generative AI tools and to create other protections for privacy, civil rights and national security.

The following day, Trump met with the leaders of several leading technology firms, including Sam Altman, CEO of Open AI; Larry Ellison, chairman of Oracle; and Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank, to announce a $500 billion private sector investment in AI infrastructure known as Stargate.

“Beginning immediately, Stargate will be building the physical and virtual infrastructure to power the next generation of advancements in AI, and this will include the construction of colossal data centers,” Trump said in a media event at the White House on Tuesday.

Specifically, Stargate will invest in the creation of as many as 10 huge data centers in the United States that will provide the computing for artificial intelligence systems. The first data center is already under construction in Texas. The massive private sector investment will create up to 100,000 U.S. jobs, the executives said.

Keeping AI in the US

“What we want to do is, we want to keep it in this country,” Trump said. “China is a competitor, and others are competitors. We want it to be in this country, and we’re making it available. I’m going to help a lot through emergency declarations, because we have an emergency. We have to get this stuff built.”

The assembled tech leaders took the opportunity to praise the new president.

“I think this will be the most important project of this era,” Altman said. “We wouldn’t be able to do this without you, Mr. President.”

Janet Egan, a senior fellow in the technology and national security program at the Center for a New American Security, said that all the signals Trump is sending indicate he is serious about maintaining the United States’ current advantages in the development of advanced AI.

“I think this shows that he’s going to have a really clear mind as to how to partner closely with the private sector to enable them to speed up and run fast,” Egan said. “We’ve also seen him take direct action on some of the bottlenecks that are impeding the development of AI infrastructure in the U.S., and a particular focus is energy.”

OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, has relied on Microsoft data centers for its computing. The firm reportedly discussed with the Biden administration the regulatory hurdles of planning and permitting when building data centers.

In a policy paper released earlier this month, OpenAI cited the competition with China, laying out its policy proposals to “extending America’s global leadership in AI innovation.”

“Chips, data, energy and talent are the keys to winning on AI — and this is a race America can and must win,” the paper said. “There’s an estimated $175 billion sitting in global funds awaiting investment in AI projects, and if the U.S. doesn’t attract those funds, they will flow to China-backed projects — strengthening the Chinese Communist Party’s global influence.”

Patrick Hedger, director of policy at NetChoice, a technology trade association, told VOA that the Stargate announcement “immediately signaled to me that private capital is more than willing to come off the sidelines these days with the new Trump administration.”

As part of his flurry of executive actions on Monday, Trump eliminated several preexisting executive orders placing limits on fossil fuel extraction and power generation. In the White House event on Monday, Trump also noted that AI data centers consume vast amounts of electricity and said he would be clearing the way for Stargate and other private companies to invest in new energy generation projects.

China competition

While Trump eliminated many of Biden’s executive orders immediately on Monday, he does not appear to have taken action against some of the former president’s other AI-related initiatives. Last year, Biden took several steps to restrict China’s access to cutting-edge technology related to AI, specifically, restricting the ability of companies that sell advanced semiconductors and the machinery used to produce them to Chinese firms.

On that issue, Egan said, Trump and Biden appear to be on the same page.

“I think it’s important to also note the continuity in how Trump’s approaching AI,” she said. “He, too, sees it as a national security risk and national security imperative. … So, I think we should expect to see this run-fast approach to AI complemented by continued efforts to understand and manage emerging risks. Particularly cyber, nuclear, biological risks, as well as a more muscular approach to export controls and enforcement.”

Speed and safety

Louis Rosenberg, CEO and chief scientist at Unanimous AI and a prominent figure in the field for decades, told VOA he thinks there is a bipartisan consensus that AI needs to be developed speedily but also responsibly.

“At the highest level, the accelerating risks around frontier AI is not a partisan issue,” he wrote in an email exchange. “Both parties realize that significant safeguards will be needed as AI gets increasingly intelligent and flexible, especially as autonomous AI agents get released at large scale.”

Rosenberg said the most significant question is how the U.S. can remain the global leader in AI development while making sure the systems that are deployed are safe and reliable.

“I suspect the Trump administration will address AI risks by deploying its own targeted policies that are not as broad as the Biden executive order was but can address real threats much faster,” he wrote. “The Biden executive order was very useful in raising the alarm about AI, but from a practical perspective it did not provide meaningful protections from the important emerging risks.

“Ultimately we need to find a way to move fast on AI development and move fast on AI protection. We need speed on both fronts,” Rosenberg said.

VOA Silicon Valley bureau chief Michelle Quinn contributed to this report.
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Singapore — TikTok’s short-lived shutdown in the United States has opened a wider debate in other countries regarding access to popular social media platforms by children.

TikTok went dark temporarily Sunday in the U.S. after a new law banning it went into effect. The law required TikTok’s Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance to sell the app’s U.S. operation due to national security concerns over its ties to Beijing.

After his inauguration on Monday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order halting the ban for 75 days, giving ByteDance additional time to find a buyer.

The order provides relief to the app’s 170 million American users, many of them young adults. More than 60% of teenagers in the U.S. ages 13 to 17 use TikTok, with most of them accessing the platform daily, according to data from the Pew Research Center.

The U.S. is not the only country looking to regulate social media and other platforms such as online gaming. While the reasons behind the restrictions vary, a growing number of countries already regulate technology or are proposing legislation to restrict its use.

In Australia, a high-profile social media ban for young adults under the age of 16 will take effect at the end of the year, prohibiting them from creating accounts on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, X and Snapchat. The government said the ban was a necessary measure to protect children.

“Social media is doing harm to our kids, and I’m calling time on it,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters last November.

Websites like YouTube that do not require an account to view content will likely be excluded from the ban.

The Australian government said the onus will be on the social media companies to “take reasonable steps” to prevent children under 16 from creating accounts on their platforms. Companies that do not comply could face fines of more than $30 million. Details of how the law will be enforced remain scarce, with age verification technologies currently being trialed.

Some young Australian users of the platforms remain skeptical about how effective a ban will be.

“I think people will manage to find ways around it, maybe by lying about their age,” 15-year-old Theodore Cagé told VOA.

While Cagé concedes that social media can be a “big distraction from school,” he is against a blanket ban, favoring more measured approaches such as limiting screen time or blocking specific content.

“I reckon it definitely should be more targeted, not just a total ban on everything, because there’s a lot of good stuff out there. It’s not all bad,” he said.

The impending ban has also raised concerns that some children will be left isolated.  

“Social media serves as a lifeline for those youth who do not have supportive homes or local environments. They can find supportive communities on social media”, Lisa Given, a professor of information sciences at RMIT University in Melbourne, told VOA.

Australia’s ban will be closely watched, especially by countries in Asia that are considering their own restrictions for young users.

Indonesia’s communications minister said the Southeast Asian nation is planning a minimum age for social media use and discussed plans last week with President Prabowo Subianto. 

In neighboring Singapore, teenagers under 18 will be moved to a more restrictive Teen Accounts on Instagram starting January 21.

The city-state also issued guidelines in schools to limit screen time for children. Starting March 31, app stores in Singapore will block children under 12 from downloading apps, including TikTok and Instagram.

But in the Southeast Asian financial hub, which prides itself on technological advancements and connectivity, social media still plays a significant role in the daily lives of young people.

Platforms like Snapchat and Instagram “are pretty important for engaging in new relationships or finding new friendships,” 17-year-old Pablo Lane of Singapore told VOA. “It [social media] has had big benefits for me, just broadening the scope of people I can contact.”

China has gone further than other countries in Asia to control children’s access to online networks. In 2021, Beijing introduced new measures restricting children under 18 to just three hours a week.  

And in late 2024, new guidelines from China’s cybersecurity regulator called for mobile devices to be equipped with a “minors mode” that would limit screen time for children under 18, including an overnight curfew.

The setting, which parents can turn off, restricts 16 to 18-year-olds to two hours of phone use a day, with eight to 16-year-olds allowed just one hour.

Jeremy Daum, a senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center, said China is also focused on protecting children from harmful content online rather than implementing blanket bans.

“They’re really trying, from a number of different angles, to make a safe web for kids,” he Daum.

Questions remain over whether China’s model could apply elsewhere. 
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Millions of U.S. TikTok users are looking to newly sworn-in President Donald Trump, who has given the app’s Chinese parent, ByteDance, 75 days to strike a deal with a U.S. buyer.
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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Tuesday talked up a joint venture investing up to $500 billion for infrastructure tied to artificial intelligence by a new partnership formed by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank. 

The new entity, Stargate, will start building data centers and the electricity generation needed for the further development of the fast-evolving AI in Texas, according to the White House. The initial investment is expected to be $100 billion and could reach five times that sum. 

“It’s big money and high quality people,” said Trump, adding that it’s “a resounding declaration of confidence in America’s potential” under his new administration. 

Joining Trump fresh off his inauguration at the White House were Masayoshi Son of SoftBank, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Larry Ellison of Oracle. All three credited Trump for helping to make the project possible, even though building has started and the project goes back to 2024. 

“This will be the most important project of this era,” said Altman, CEO of OpenAI. 

Ellison noted that the data centers are already under construction with 10 being built so far. The chairman of Oracle suggested that the project was also tied to digital health records and would make it easier to treat diseases such as cancer by possibly developing a customized vaccine. 

“This is the beginning of golden age,” said Son, referencing Trump’s statement that the U.S. would be in a “golden age” with him back in the White House. 

Son, a billionaire based in Japan, committed in December to invest $100 billion in U.S. projects over the next four years. He previously committed to $50 billion in new investments ahead of Trump’s first term, which included a large stake in the troubled office-sharing company WeWork. 

While Trump has seized on similar announcements to show that his presidency is boosting the economy, there were already expectations of a massive buildout in data centers and electricity plants needed for the development of AI, which holds the promise of increasing productivity by automating work but also the risk of displacing jobs if poorly implemented. 

The initial plans for Stargate go back to the Biden administration. Tech news outlet The Information first reported on the project in March 2024. OpenAI has long relied on Microsoft data centers to build its AI systems, but it has increasingly signaled an interest in building its own data centers. 

OpenAI wrote in a letter to the Biden administration’s Commerce Department last fall that planning and permitting for such projects “can be lengthy and complex, particularly for energy infrastructure.” 

The push to build data centers also predates Trump’s presidency. Last October, the financial company Blackstone estimated that the U.S. would see $1 trillion invested in data centers over five years, with another $1 trillion being committed internationally. 

Those estimates for investments suggest that much of the new capital will go through Stargate as OpenAI has established itself as a sector leader with the 2022 launch of its ChaptGPT, a chatbot that captivated the public imagination with its ability to answer complex questions and perform basic business tasks. 

The White House has put an emphasis on making it easier to build out new electricity generation in anticipation of AI’s expansion, knowing that the United States is in a competitive race against China to develop a technology increasingly being adopted by businesses. 

Still, the regulatory outlook for AI remains somewhat uncertain as Trump on Monday overturned the 2023 order signed by then-President Joe Biden to create safety standards and watermarking of AI-generated content, among other goals, in hopes of putting guardrails on the technology’s possible risks to national security and economic well-being. 

Trump supporter Elon Musk, worth more than $400 billion, was an early investor in OpenAI but has since challenged its move to for-profit status and has started his own AI company, xAI. Musk is also in charge of the “Department of Government Efficiency” created formally on Monday by Trump with the goal of reducing government spending. 

Trump previously in January announced a $20 billion investment by DAMAC Properties in the United Arab Emirates to build data centers tied to AI. 
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