The United States leads the world today in development of artificial intelligence because of decisions decades ago to install fiber-optic cables, coaxial lines and other broadband infrastructure that put the country at the forefront of the early digital revolution. The 1996 Telecommunications Act, with bipartisan support from forward-thinking lawmakers, reinforced the infrastructure as a national strategy, and the country’s resulting leadership in AI has underscored that infrastructure is destiny.

As revolutionary as electricity, and promising similarly distributed access and benefits, AI can power a reindustrialization across the US, extend its global competitiveness, and boost national, state and household finances for the long term. Investment to extend the US lead in AI can yield tens of thousands of jobs; significant growth in GDP; a modernized, cleaner energy grid and energy policy featuring nuclear power; and a state-of-the art network of semiconductor manufacturing facilities – invigorating local economies across the country.

With an estimated $175 billion in global infrastructure funds waiting to be committed, the question is not whether that funding will flow, but where. If it doesn’t flow into US-backed global infrastructure projects that advance a global AI that spreads the technology’s benefits to the most people possible, then it will flow to China-backed projects that leverage AI to cement and expand autocratic power. There is no third option⁠(opens in a new window).

OpenAI recently engaged outside experts to forecast potential job gains and GDP growth that would result from building 5GW data centers in a sampling of states. We found⁠(opens in a new window) that constructing and operating a single 5GW data center could create or support about 40,000 jobs – in construction and maintenance, restaurants and retail, and other industries that would serve the new workers — and contribute between $17 billion and $20 billion to a state’s GDP.