Microsoft Corp president Brad Smith on Friday said the company is on track to pump about US$80 billion into artificial intelligence (AI) this fiscal year ending at the close of June.
Smith contended AI is poised to transform all aspects of life, and it is imperative that the US be the global leader when it comes to the technology, he wrote in an online post.
“In many ways, artificial intelligence is the electricity of our age, and the next four years can build a foundation for America’s economic success for the next quarter century,” Smith said.
Photo: Reuters
He called on US president-elect Donald Trump and Congress to expand support for AI innovation with moves such as increased funding for research at universities and the National Science Foundation.
China and the US are racing to spread their AI systems to other countries in an effort to become the de facto standard, Smith said.
“Given the nature of technology markets and their potential network effects, this race between the US and China for international influence likely would be won by the fastest first mover,” Smith said.
“Hence, the United States needs a smart international strategy to rapidly support American AI around the world,” he added.
China has started offering developing countries subsidized access to scarce computer chips and help building local AI datacenters, Smith said.
“The Chinese wisely recognize that if a country standardizes on China’s AI platform, it likely will continue to rely on that platform in the future,” Smith said.
The US should move quickly to promote its AI technology as superior and more trustworthy, enlisting allies in the effort, he said.
For its part, Microsoft is on pace to invest about US$80 billion this year to build out AI datacenters, train AI models and deploy cloud-based applications around the world, Smith said.
Microsoft rivals Amazon.com Inc, Google and OpenAI have also been spending billions of US dollars on AI even, although it remains unclear how and when they expect to profit from those investments.
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