Artificial Intelligence

Typically, when I’m on the road, I split my time between sharing what’s happening in Washington (DC) and gathering information on what’s happening in the field. But the conversations during my recent two-stop swing were unexpectedly different. To be clear, we still did the “DC update,” compared notes on operational issues, and talked a lot about the interaction of the two. That’s so valuable, and I can’t pass up those opportunities.

A federal broadband subsidy program under financial duress could get bailed out by AI-related companies, as policymakers consider making major users of broadband infrastructure contribute to universal service. Universal service reform could expand the pool of companies that help finance broadband networks to include hyperscalers, cloud providers and other major users of internet infrastructure, according to former Federal Communications Commission officials and broadband advocates. 

I know we all know some humans. And I hope they all survive longer than our AI overlords currently predict. But I start there because they are often lost in discussions about technology. For over 45 years, the Benton Institute—and our allies like Public Knowledge—have worked to ensure our policy debates are not about one technology or another, not one industry segment or company over another, but about what role communications and information services play in improving human lives.

Last week I finished a hundred-page empirical report on four federal and two state broadband subsidy programs. It found that the programs mostly paid for service that was coming anyway, and that the ones with credible comparison groups bought a year or so of earlier service at a few thousand dollars per location per year. A project like that would once have taken me a year with a research assistant.

President Trump presented National Medals of Science and National Medals of Technology and Innovation, our nation’s highest honors for exemplary achievement and leadership in science and technology, to six of America’s greatest living innovators. Since 1963, the President of the United States has bestowed the National Medal of Science on those deserving of special recognition for their outstanding contributions to science in service of the United States.

At the Science: A New Golden Age Summit, the Trump Administration launched the most ambitious set of science initiatives in decades, representing over $6 billion in investments across the Federal Government, industry, academia, and philanthropy to usher in a New Golden Age of Science. America’s largest Federal research agencies and partners across the science ecosystem launched whole-of-nation efforts to position the United States to lead in a new era of scientific discovery.

Gov Wes Moore (D-MD) is forming a bipartisan group of governors to respond to mounting concerns about the threats posed by artificial intelligence, as he argued that states need to fill a void left by the federal government’s inaction on the issue.

President Donald Trump has been adamant about one thing: the United States is in an existential race against the People’s Republic of China to win the biggest prize of all: AI dominance. President Trump has also weighed in on the side of data centers to meet the demand provided by accelerated AI adoption. Microsoft recently reported a $680 billion backlog in demand for its cloud services—an 84 percent increase over the previous year.

A new White House task force will have 120 days to report on the risks and opportunities of artificial intelligence—and determine the federal government’s responsibility—according to Jay Clayton, the director of national intelligence who effectively becomes the administration’s AI czar.

The common theme that spanned across SCTE TechExpo26 in Atlanta was that the cable industry is facing a new network challenge as upstream broadband traffic grows faster than many operators anticipated. OpenVault CEO and Founder Mark Trudeau said the industry's focus has shifted from simply adding downstream capacity to ensuring networks can reliably support a growing volume of upstream activity driven by applications such as AI, content creation, and social media uploads.