US lawmakers seek to undercut Chinese AI and tech sales abroad - Reuters

Ah, the American legislative response to Chinese AI expansion: a shiny new office at the State Department that will subsidise purchases of US tech by allied governments. Because nothing says 'we're winning the AI race' quite like turning foreign aid into a tech retail operation. The bill, co-sponsored by senators from both parties, suggests that the best way to counter Beijing's aggressive push is to… cut them a better deal. Not build a better model, not regulate more effectively, just offer a discount. It's like trying to win a Formula 1 race by giving your competitor's fuel vouchers to your fans.

The senators are framing this as a strategic imperative, but really it's an admission that the US can't out-innovate China on a level playing field — so why not tip the scales with taxpayer money? The proposed 'American Technology for Allied Governments' office — because naming things after what they do is too straightforward — will essentially act as a government-funded sales team for Big Tech. Expect glowing press releases about 'partnerships' while the actual capability gap either narrows or widens depending on whose lobbyists wrote the bill.

What's truly galling is the timing: as frontier models get scarier by the quarter, lawmakers are busy setting up a state-sponsored procurement arm rather than, say, writing binding safety rules. But no, that would interfere with the flow of subsidised software to foreign capitals. So here we are: the world's greatest democracy responds to an authoritarian competitor's AI push by becoming a subsidised vendor. At least the State Department will have a new acronym to justify its budget. Just what we needed — more bureaucratic overhead to make George Orwell look like a tech optimist.