U.S. officials are weighing a proposal that might see the federal government take stakes in leading artificial intelligence providers.
The discussions were first reported by news outlet NOTUS late Thursday. In accordance with Politico, President Donald Trump confirmed the report today during a press briefing aboard Air Force One. Trump stated that he’ll likely meet with representatives of “all the large” AI developers on the White House next week.
The report didn’t specify the businesses that might be involved within the initiative. OpenAI Group PBC Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman visited Washington, D.C., earlier this week to fulfill with administration officials. Dario Amodei, his counterpart at Anthropic PBC, held discussions on the White House in April.
“There’s an idea on the market, there’s a lot money and it’s so big that there are concepts where pieces might be given to the American public, where the American public essentially becomes a partner with the businesses,” Trump said today.
The dimensions of the stakes that the federal government would soak up the participating AI firms is unclear. Nevertheless, NOTUS reported that the returns provided by the investment might be used to issue a dividend to American households. The publication’s sources added that the main points of the initiative are still in flux.
CNBC reported today that White House officials have been discussing the concept with Sam Altman for over a yr. Under the proposed plan, OpenAI would donate equity to the federal government. The shares would reportedly be used to finance an investment vehicle that may enable Americans to share within the profits of AI firms.
The fund could reportedly be much like the “Public Wealth Fund” that OpenAI proposed in a recent policy paper. In accordance with the document, the investment vehicle would back frontier model developers and corporations which can be using AI of their business operations. OpenAI stated that the fund’s returns might be distributed to U.S. households.
Earlier this week, Senator Bernie Sanders proposed that the federal government take a 50% stake in AI providers akin to OpenAI and Anthropic. Trump addressed the concept today by stating that “so far as economics is worried, we have now certain things that aren’t that far apart. Individuals are surprised.”
The event comes just a few weeks after the U.S. Commerce Department agreed to issue $2.013 billion in grants to IBM Corp., GlobalFoundries Inc. and 7 other players within the quantum computing market. The U.S. government will receive shares in exchange for the funds. The equity that GlobalFoundries, a publicly traded chip manufacturer, plans to offer reportedly amounts to a 1% stake.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
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