The headlines from the past week have made one thing crystal clear: the stakes in the race for technological supremacy are rising fast, and America is at risk of falling behind.
First, President Trump issued a new executive action calling for immediate measures to increase domestic production of U.S. critical minerals. The action was a clear acknowledgment that the U.S. lacks reliable access to the materials we need to build everything from smartphones and EV batteries to hypersonic weapons and advanced defense systems. The White House and nearly everyone in Washington know that these minerals aren’t just vital to consumer products—they’re foundational for our most advanced defense capabilities.
Then came new tensions with China after a congressional panel accused Chinese students and researchers of exploiting access to U.S. universities to boost Beijing’s military ambitions. The Chinese government quickly pushed back, but no one doubts the PRC’s intent to steal American IP.
And just yesterday, Ant Group unveiled a new method for training AI models resulting in a 20 percent cost reduction—part of a broader push by Chinese tech giants to flood the global market with cheap, widely accessible AI models. The goal is clear: undercut America’s leading firms like OpenAI, Google, and xAI, win adoption at scale, and erode the West’s technological edge. It’s a page straight out of China’s 5G playbook—use state-backed scale to shape global standards and secure dominance in the next great platform shift.
These events may seem unrelated, but they’re not. They underscore a deeper, more urgent truth: America’s leadership in frontier technologies is under threat. And that leadership is the single most important driver of our future security, prosperity, and global leadership.
How is this happening?
We’re being out-maneuvered. While American policymakers, founders, and investors debate priorities, craft proposals, and wrestle with fragmented funding approaches, China moves forward with single-minded purpose, committed to dominating critical technology sectors. Their government identifies specific areas where global leadership will yield outsized strategic advantage and then deploys capital swiftly and at scale to guarantee outcomes.
As a 2024 Congressional Report laid out, China’s vision is to achieve “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” by 2049 through technological self-sufficiency. China has committed $1.4 trillion over five years to key sectors, including semiconductors, AI, and aerospace, to get there.
The need for America to lead in critical technologies isn’t about xenophobia or fearmongering. It’s about realism. The Chinese Communist Party has a long track record of using academic exchanges, commercial partnerships, and state subsidies to accelerate its military-industrial complex. Pretending otherwise is naïve—and dangerous.
But this is also about more than China. It’s also about how we invest. Right now, America relies almost entirely on private capital markets to fund innovation. But the markets do not always invest in what is strategically vital for the nation—especially when the demand signals from government agencies like the DOD are inconsistent and unclear.
In other words, the invisible hand won’t save us. We need public-private collaboration that can carry these technologies from the lab to market. That means issuing clear demand signals from government, creating new funding pathways for single and dual-use startups, and making bold, national bets where markets fall short.
The good news? We still have the world’s most dynamic innovation ecosystem. But if we want to stay ahead, we need to start treating technology not just as a business opportunity, but as a matter of national strategy.
This moment is a wake-up call. We can either rise to meet it—or watch others define the future for us.
