AI leaders hit the Hill

The Big Story 

Leaders from Silicon Valley were met Thursday with a new tone from Congress, where Republican lawmakers sang their tune of tech innovation over heavy-handed regulations.  

© Greg Nash

Over the course of more than three hours, four major technology leaders, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, pitched their ideas to senators on how to stay ahead of China in the artificial intelligence (AI) race.  

Altman warned the Senate Commerce, Energy and Science Committee that the U.S. is ahead now, but China might not be that far behind.  

“It is our belief that the American models including some models from OpenAI, Google and others are the best models in the world. It’s very hard to say how far ahead we are, but I would say not a huge amount of time,” Altman said during the hearing titled “Winning the AI Race: Strengthening U.S. Capabilities in Computing and Innovation.”

Other witnesses included Microsoft vice chair and President Brad Smith;Lisa Su, the CEO of semiconductor maker AMD; and Michael Intrator, co-founder of AI cloud computing startup CoreWeave.

To keep ahead of China, Altman and the other witnesses called on Congress to prioritize AI infrastructure like data centers, training workers like electricians to help build these products and the need for open and broad access to public data. 

While the hearing touched upon a variety of topics from AI’s energy use to discrimination in models, the push for a light-handed approach underscored both witness testimony and questions from mostly GOP lawmakers.  

“Adopting a light-touch regulatory style for AI will require Congress to work alongside the president…We need to advance legislation that promotes long-term AI growth and innovation,” Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said in his opening remarks.  

Cruz called out Europe’s regulation-heavy stance, warning it “killed tech in Europe.”  

The tech leaders echoed this idea, while noting they would still support a streamlined federal approach that would make clear the rules and speed up development.  

“One federal framework that is light touch that we can understand and lets us move with the speed that this moment calls for seems important and fine,” Altman said, later noting a state-by-state approach would be “burdensome.”  

Read more takeaways from the hearing at TheHill.com.

Welcome to The Hill’s Technology newsletter, we’re Miranda Nazzaro and Julia Shapero — tracking the latest moves from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley.

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Essential Reads 

How policy will be impacting the tech sector now and in the future:

Democrats block stablecoin bill in blow to crypto

Duffy calls for massive investment in new air traffic controller technology

Google stock falls as Apple considers adding AI search engines

The Refresh 

News we’ve flagged from the intersection of tech and other topics:

• Google rolls out AI tools to protect Chrome users against scams (TechCrunch)

• OpenAI hires Instacart CEO as head of applications (Wall Street Journal)

Crypto Corner 

Stablecoin bill stumbles over Senate floor hurdle

© Greg Nash

Welcome to Crypto Corner, a daily feature focused on digital currency and its outlook in Washington.

Legislation to create a framework for payment stablecoins failed to clear a key hurdle on the Senate floor Thursday, after a partisan dispute threw a wrench in recent progress. 

Senators voted 48-49 to end debate on a motion to proceed on the GENIUS Act, short of the 60 votes required to move the measure further along the road to final passage.

The legislation, which passed out of the Senate Banking Committee in March with the support of five Democrats, had been sailing along smoothly prior to last week.

However, after Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) sought to expedite a vote on the bill, crypto-friendly Democrats revolted and pull their support. 

They accused Republicans of attempting to force a vote on the GENIUS Act before wrapping up negotiations with Democrats, who have continued to voice concerns about anti-money laundering and national security provisions. 

The two sides appeared to be nearing a deal ahead of Thursday’s vote, but Senate Democrats said Thursday morning that they still had yet to see new bill text.

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), the top Democrat on the Senate Banking subcommittee on digital assets, pushed to delay the vote until Monday, emphasizing that they had made “great progress.” 

“The reason you’re hearing some hesitancy, the legislation of this scope and importance really just cannot be rushed, and we need time both to educate our colleagues and people,” he said on the Senate floor.

“We’re not shutting down,” he added. “We don’t want to shut this down to the point where we’re ending all this work that we have put into it.” 

His proposal was ultimately rejected, and the Senate moved forward with the vote.

After the motion was voted down, Thune slammed Democrats, arguing they would have had an opportunity to consider more tweaks before a final vote.

“If Democrats were interested in further changes as they claim, they would have had the chance to make those changes on the floor,” Thune said.

“All they had to do was vote for cloture. Not every bill that comes to the floor is a final bill. Now, that might be how it worked when they were in control, but Republicans are doing it differently.”

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