Trump to steer billions from universities to AI and individual scientists to counter China
White House says overhaul will back AI and researchers to restore the US scientific edge as Beijing closes the innovation gap
US President Donald Trump’s administration will redirect billions of dollars in federal research funding away from universities to individual scientists and AI-focused projects, arguing the overhaul is needed to help the US compete with China.
The plan, outlined in a White House Office of Science and Technology Policy report released on Tuesday, comes as the administration warns that China has reached parity with the US in research and development spending over the past 20 years, “a situation America did not face even during the Cold War”.
“Beyond the sheer scale of its spending, Beijing is treating scientific research capacity as a central pillar of global competition, elevating decision-making to the highest level and taking a tightly integrated approach to partnerships across its sectors,” the report, “Science: A New Golden Age”, said.
“This all-of-society approach has allowed China to surge resources towards basic scientific research, advance rapidly in technologies of key national interest, and drive improvements in its innovation process, where entrenched interests have resisted change.”
In response, the US will reconfigure its annual federal R&D budget of around US$200 billion away from funding colleges and “legacy institutions” and towards individual scientists instead, in pursuit of faster and more “agile” new research organisations with AI as a core focus, the report said.