1、SEPTEMBER 2024Infrastructure is Destiny Economic Returnson US Investmentin Democratic AIOverviewRevolutionary technology propels advances in infrastructure.Capital flows determine where and how theinfrastructure is built.Those decisions determine whether a society leads or lags on technologicalinnov

2、ation,often with far-reaching consequences.This is why infrastructure is destiny.The United States leads the world today in development of artificial intelligence because of decisionsmade decades ago to install fiber-optic cables,coaxial lines and other broadband infrastructure that putthe country a

3、t the forefront of the early digital revolution.The 1996 Telecommunications Act,withbipartisan support from forward-thinking lawmakers,reinforced the infrastructure as a national strategy.As revolutionary as electricity,and promising similarly distributed access and benefits,AI can power areindustri

4、alization across the US,extend its global competitiveness,and boost national,state andhousehold finances for the long term.Investment to extend the US lead in AI can yield tens of thousandsof jobs;significant growth in GDP;a modernized,cleaner energy grid and energy policy,featuring nuclearpower;and

5、 a state-of-the art network of semiconductor manufacturing facilities invigorating localeconomies across the country.These are New Deal-sized stakes and scale.Capital spending on AI already rivals the mainframe era of the late 1960s and the fiber optic deploymentof the late 1990s1 with an estimated$

6、175 billion in global infrastructure funds waiting to becommitted.2The question is not whether that funding will flow,but where.If it doesnt flow intoUS-backed global infrastructure projects that advance a global AI that spreads the technologys benefitsto the most people possible,then it will flow t