Trump's AI Superpower Ambitions
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From the heart of where innovation, money, and power collide. In Silicon Valley and beyond. This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow. ♪♪

Live from New York, I'm Caroline Hyde. You are watching Bloomberg Technology. The news coming out of AI infrastructure, the fact that we saw from SoftBank, OpenAI and Oracle a deal to be investing $100 billion more in infrastructure, or potentially $500 billion, we'll get to more of that in a moment. NVIDIA gets a lift, but Larry Ellison is everywhere at the moment. And let's just talk about that, because President Donald Trump said he would be open to Oracle chairman Larry Ellison, or indeed Elon Musk, purchasing TikTok. It's

It's part of a joint venture with the US government. Let's bring in Bloomberg's Alex Levine, who is trying to dissect the narratives going on around TikTok because they aren't the only key bit on the table. I mean, in fact, we haven't even got one from Larry Ellison and Elon Musk.

There are a bunch on the table. I think the most important thing to note up top is that ByteDance has not made any indication publicly that they are interested in selling TikTok's U.S. business. It's possible that could change now that the app has been shut down for a brief period this past weekend and also that they're at the end of their legal road.

but they've made no indication that they want to sell. If they do consider, who are the potential buyers on the table? Well, we know that Elon Musk and Larry Ellison, based on what Trump said at the White House just yesterday, are people that he'd be open to potentially selling to. But we also heard yesterday that there is a new bid that was assembled by a tech entrepreneur who is the founder of Employer.com. And he has assembled a group of American investors that actually includes Mr. Beast or Jimmy Donaldson, who is the highest-ranking

earning and most followed creator on the internet. So again, remains to be seen whether any of these go anywhere, but I do think that, well, they are not the first and they will probably not be the last that we see spring up in the next, you know, several weeks or months. What we're trying to understand is what on earth a joint venture with the US government would possibly look like. This has got to be getting the current investors in ByteDance avid attention. General Atlantic Bill Ford has been speaking in Davos to Axios and he's saying, look, actually negotiations will be kicking off this week.

Yep, so I think that we can expect to see a little bit more movement, but it's also important to remember that everything we have heard thus far, especially from Donald Trump, who is really the one that has leverage over this, it's all been very mushy. So that has been mushy. I think the one thing that is clear is that political connections at this point are going to rule the day. And Trump doesn't seem interested anymore, really, in talking about data protection or what kind of technical fix this could be. He really wants to strike

business gold. He wants a lucrative deal for the United States and he knows that he is now the one that has the most leverage over it.

Alex Levine, working double time. We appreciate it. Let's talk about what else President Trump has been unveiling. And a sweeping program to speed up AI infrastructure is one of them, dubbed Stargate. The initiative will see SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle forming a $100 billion joint venture to build out new data centers and campuses. We want to talk about more of this because it involves other technical players like NVIDIA and Microsoft and Arm Holdings. We

We're joined by Navreena Singh. She is the CEO of AI governance platform Credo AI, member of the White House's National AI Advisory Committee that was formed, of course, under the previous administration. Navreena, it feels as though the safety is again, in this case, going to one side and it is all out investment in infrastructure. Governance doesn't matter.

Hello from Davos. Good to see you. You know, it's interesting because we are seeing a slightly different narrative on the ground. We are actually seeing that there's a lot of excitement around artificial intelligence, which is powering every industry and governance and trust building is right central to it.

Here at Davos, we have enterprise leaders from some of the top companies. We have policymakers. We have governments represented. And what's really interesting is artificial intelligence is the talk of the day, but more importantly is trust. So I'm not seeing safety and trust conversations moving to the side. I'm actually seeing they still being right in the focus here. But he undid that executive order that potentially helped advise on previously about

AI safety and governance. So do you still think that businesses will commit to having a credo come in when they are also looking to build out? How new is this investment seeming from SoftBank, from Oracle and from OpenAI? You know, the Trump administration has been investing a lot in artificial intelligence, just like the previous government has invested a lot in AI in the past couple of years.

I think we are going to continue to see the momentum in this space. Now, what form it takes, I would say the next 48 hours, two next six months are going to tell. But there is still a lot of discussion around what does good guardrails, what does good governance for this very powerful technology look like? And as you know, this is such a broad space.

Artificial intelligence technology is creating markets and markets within markets and guardrails are becoming central to the conversation around trust and risk management. Certainly it still remains important to Europe and there are two very different tacks being taken it feels like from EU regulation and US regulation. With your expertise having advised the previous administration and potentially still working for this next one in an advisory role Navreena,

Do you think this $100 billion, maybe $500 billion, is actually new? Or is it just being packaged in a new way? Because look, apparently all the infrastructure was already being built in some way in Texas, according to Larry Ellison, and we already heard from Masayoshi Son about his $100 billion intentions.

It might not be a new idea, but I think this is showing further commitment to this transformational technology. So is this a good step in the right direction? Absolutely. Now what this means in terms of making sure that we are driving growth responsibly, that is yet to be determined. Have you been asked for advice on that by the new administration? How do you think your role will continue to blossom or not with government?

So we are continuing to serve the new administration as well. As you recall, I have been on the National AI Advisory Commission for the past three years and I have committed to serving the new administration in the coming three years. So looking forward to contributing to our nation's growth, especially in artificial intelligence. And Avrina, just leave us with what Europe thinks about all this. Clients there, as they do focus in on the governance side.

So as you can imagine, the EU AI Act goes into effect in a couple of weeks, especially with the AI literacy requirements as well as requirements around the prohibited use cases. So there's a lot of discussion right now at Davos around what does AI literacy mean for an enterprise? Because to be able to build and grow with artificial intelligence

and bring all the prosperity that everyone's talking about, you need to be literate about these technologies. And so what we are seeing on the ground right now is a lot of conversation around AI literacy and what that means for enterprise. Thank you for sharing some of your time in Davos. Credo AI CEO Navreena Singh staying warm late there. We appreciate it. This is Bloomberg Technology.

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