Technology

➚ MOVE FAST: Scale AI. A managing director at the company, Michael Kratsios, is one of the leads on tech policy for the Trump transition team. Scale AI has already made major inroads in Washington, securing government contracts and winning friends on Capitol Hill. Now it’s set to expand its reach.

➘ BREAK THINGS: OpenAI. The chief antagonist of the ChatGPT maker is Elon Musk, who bet big on Trump and is poised to become a major Washington influencer. And CEO Sam Altman is a Democratic donor. That makes OpenAI’s partnership with Microsoft, which is good at navigating tricky political and regulatory situations, more crucial.

There are AI co-pilots for coders. Why not AI co-pilots for parents? That’s what Andreessen Horowitz partner Justine Moore touted on X. She cited large language models and AI agents that can personalize answers for questions of first-time parents based on content from experts and data on their baby.

There are also companies like Cradlewise, which pitches an AI-powered system that “analyzes your baby’s torso” to track the little one’s breaths and a smart crib that gives parents “up to two more hours of sleep each night.”

Sleep-deprived zombie parents will literally buy anything while their babies are screaming in the middle of the night, so this is a great business idea. Like many baby products, though, these ones sound too good to be true.

On Wednesday, we broke down why Elon Musk was the big winner in the tech industry after the US election. Today, we’re taking a step back to look at how technology will play a key role in the second Trump presidency.

During the previous two administrations, the biggest policy decisions around technology were about playing defense: The first Trump term focused on curbing the ability of China to rip off American innovation. Biden officials picked up where Trump left off, with new export restrictions on American technology and the CHIPS Act, aimed at onshoring and diversifying the semiconductor supply chain.

The next four years will likely include a hefty bit of offense. How does the US dominate the artificial intelligence revolution, the space industry, biotech, materials science and other areas key to having an edge against China in the technology cold war?

Deep tech categories are hitting inflection points, and how the US fares relative to China could shape Trump’s long-term legacy.

Here are some interesting areas worth watching.

Basic research: Like most Republican administrations, Trump comes to office with the promise of reducing government spending. What we don’t know is whether that policy will apply to federal funding for basic research.

When it comes to AI, the most cutting-edge research requires access to the kind of compute power currently controlled exclusively by corporations — at least in the US.

America could see increased spending in this area. The first Trump White House, in August 2020, worked with the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy to set up 12 AI and quantum computing research institutes, offering $1 billion in funding for work in those areas.

One clue will be how Trump officials weigh in on the National AI Resource, a pilot program that offers compute resources for government and academic researchers and some startups.

Bargaining Chips: The cutting-edge silicon that crunches AI math at blazing speeds makes products like ChatGPT possible, and global businesses can’t get enough of it.

The US has so far been cautious about where it allows companies like Nvidia and Cerebrus to ship their most powerful products, worried that the technology could fall into the hands of China or countries with poor human rights records.

Trump could see these chips as leverage in international negotiations. As one tech policy person said to me this week, “Chips are the new tariffs.” Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been pushing the US to allow more chip imports.

The question is what Trump, author of The Art of the Deal, will ask for in return. It’s not inconceivable that chips could have some role in efforts to end the war in Ukraine or Gaza, for instance, given the Gulf region’s interest in both conflicts.

The 2024 election cycle is finally over — so, what’s coming to your screens next? Today, Ben and Nayeema dissect what the media learned from 2024 and where we go from here. They first chat to Semafor’s Max Tani about the news media, and then sit down with Ankler Media’s Janice Min — who has been reporting on (and embedded in) Hollywood culture for decades. The conversation tackles whether politics and art stay linked or divorce, if Donald Trump will wake up “wokeism” again or if Americans turn to escapism, and why TV is chasing the “gourmet cheeseburger.”

Listen to the latest episode of Mixed Signals now.

The amount raised by China’s Zhipu AI for a venture capital fund backing businesses that can build out the company’s tech ecosystem. It’s one of China’s four AI tigers looking to catch up to US firms like OpenAI, according to the South China Morning Post, and Zhipu’s fund is similar to one hatched by Sam Altman’s company. Its investment targets include AI infrastructure startup SiliconFlow and video generator Shengshu AI.

Conversation defining journalism: Our friends at 404 Media publish scoops every single day on artificial intelligence, surveillance, hacking, and the tech industry more broadly. Made up of four journalists who quit to go independent, they publish stories you simply won’t find anywhere else. Sign up for their newsletter here.

Ottawa has taken an interesting approach to addressing what it sees as national security risks posed by TikTok. It ordered the Canadian business of the viral video platform to shut down, but the app itself would still be available and operate normally. TikTok has vowed to fight the move in Canada’s courts, just as it’s done in the US against Washington legislation forcing Chinese parent ByteDance to divest of the app or face a ban.

Donald Trump has a consequential choice to make that could affect his entire second-term agenda: whether to endorse in the race to become Senate majority leader next year, Semafor’s Burgess Everett reports.

Trump may not weigh in at all on who he wants to steer his agenda in the upper chamber. But if he does, his endorsement would upend a once-sleepy race that has intensified in the past 48 hours.