AI Winners & Losers in the Trump Era

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AI Winners & Losers in the Trump Era

In January 2025, Trump will become the 47th President of the United States. His term will mark a significant departure from current views, which comes at what is possibly the most important moment in Artificial Intelligence’s history.

So, what will happen to AI and its incumbents during the Trump era?

By the end of the article, you will have unique access to what’s expected from this Administration, with the winners and losers of this event, as well as what I feel will determine the success or failure of Trump’s AI policies, something that is rarely if ever, mentioned.

Disclaimer: This is an AI article, not a political one; I’m not here to lecture or virtue signal anyone. I’m not from the US, and I don’t live in the US, so I assume you couldn’t care less about my opinions on the election.

Breaking With the Past

Before we discuss the winners and losers and the key consequences, we’ll examine Trump’s incumbency based on strict evidence from two perspectives: geopolitics and AI policy.

AI & Geopolitics

China. As JD Vance, Vice President-elect, has publicly stated, the US will no longer pretend they care about Europe. With the new term, the US’ priority will unapologetically be the Pacific axis (it was already, despite the Ukraine war), aka China and the US allies in the area (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines).

Concerningly, the incoming POTUS will probably face one of the worst escalations in the Pacific in decades. China is dead serious about the Republic of China, known as Taiwan, being part of the ‘One China,’ and Xi Jinping has not been afraid to suggest they might use force if necessary.

According to US Intelligence, Xi Jinping has instructed his army officials to be ready for an invasion as soon as 2027. Of course, this means that the theoretical invasion will take place during Trump’s new term.

While Biden’s Administration has not been shy of threatening escalation to protect their ally, Trump isn’t quite as fond of Taiwan. In many interviews, he has said that Taiwan ‘stole’ the US chip manufacturing industry and that the US is working as an ‘insurance company’ to Taiwan, suggesting they need to start paying in some way for that stringent defense.

Most of the world's advanced industries, such as cars, computers, smartphones, and AI, rely on advanced chips… 90% of which are produced in Taiwan, especially by one company, TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Company).

Although ‘advanced chips’ is a lousy term, it usually refers to chips in the sub-10nm transistor range. The smaller each transistor is, the more you can fit into the processor, leading to more compute density (more compute power per chip).

Among the many US corporations that depend on TSMC to manufacture their chips are NVIDIA, Apple, Qualcomm (and thereby Microsoft), Tesla, Meta, Amazon, and a long tail of S&P500 companies. Even Intel, which can produce its own chips, is a…

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