A US$500 billion investment plan says a lot about Trump's AI priorities

It's build, baby, build.

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When President Donald Trump announced a half-trillion-dollar ($679 billion) of private sector investment in American artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure on Jan 21, his second day in office, he basked in the accolades of the three men backing the "Stargate" project: OpenAI's Mr Sam Altman; Mr Masayoshi Son, a Japanese tech mogul; and Mr Larry Ellison of Oracle, an IT firm.

He called it the largest AI investment in history. Then came the kicker. "This is money that normally would have gone to China."

Considering that AI will be the defining technology of his time in office, Mr Trump can sound awestruck by it. "AI seems to be very hot," he said. But as the announcement of the four-year project (which starts with the construction of massive data centres in Texas) foreshadowed, AI is likely to be a priority within his administration. That is for strategic as well as economic reasons.

The government's "north star", as one tech insider in Washington puts it, will be how to beat China in the AI war.

Silicon Valley has China hawks already nestled in the White House. Mr David Sacks, Mr Trump's AI and crypto czar, is a venture capitalist who believes that the benefits of America winning the geopolitical battle with China outweigh the economic costs of isolating it.

Mr Michael Kratsios, an AI policymaker in both Trump administrations and formerly of Scale AI, a tech start-up, thinks that China is "hell-bent" on exporting its AI technology worldwide.

Mr Jacob Helberg, Mr Trump's pick for undersecretary for economic growth and a former adviser to Palantir, a Silicon Valley darling, has argued that it is imperative for America to win the AI arms race with China.