Jake Sullivan is furious that Trump destroyed his AI foreign policy

Former National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan is furious that the Trump administration reversed his key foreign policy move: tight export controls on high-end AI chips sold to China, which he viewed as essential for maintaining the US geopolitical advantage. Sullivan admitted that his team, during a 2022 simulation of the US-China AI arms race, failed to anticipate that a future administration would roll back these controls, a move he sees as a direct gift to China, whose primary constraint in AI development is access to these chips. He argues that allowing companies like Nvidia to sell powerful chips, such as the H200, to China undermines US technological superiority and enables Chinese firms to build global data centers using American technology. Sullivan also criticized the Trump administration for abandoning safety alignment discussions, discouraging global talent, and slashing basic research funding, all of which he believes erode the US innovation edge. He warned that tech companies making partisan deals risk long-term harm as China eventually masters the technology and outcompetes them, drawing parallels to the EV market experience.

(Source：The Verge)