Washington has developed a peculiar idea about how to “win” the global AI race: don’t run it. Instead of out-innovating China, many policymakers now seem convinced the winning move is to slow China down through export controls, sanctions, and restrictions. The impulse is understandable. The conclusion is wrong.

If the United States wants to stay ahead in AI, it must do what it has always done best: push the technological frontier forward, build at scale, and compete ferociously. The countries that win this era will not be the ones that restrict the most – they will be the ones that build the most.

America’s technology industry is the country’s most valuable strategic asset. But it would be naïve to think that dominance is guaranteed. In 2010, ExxonMobil topped the global market-cap rankings; only two of the top five companies were tech firms. Today in 2025, Nvidia sits at No. 1 and every one of the top five companies is a technology giant. Meanwhile, Intel, the indispensable chipmaker of the late 20th century, has struggled for years as competitors outrun it. Technology leadership is not a birthright. It must be earned, continuously.

History offers plenty of reminders. After the triumph of the Apollo program, few would have predicted that NASA would one day depend on Russia to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station, a monopoly that lasted from 2011 to 2020. It took SpaceX, through relentless innovation and reusability breakthroughs, to restore American launch capability. And crucially, NASA fostered competition by........

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