Will AI’s Future Be American?

By Ted Cruz

Sunday, September 28, 2025

 

This summer, China unveiled its plan for accomplishing an audacious goal the country had set for itself eight years prior: to become the dominant force in artificial intelligence by 2030. The sweeping blueprint calls for embedding AI into 90 percent of the Chinese economy, from scientific research and development to government decision-making. The Chinese Communist Party is poised to weaponize AI as a tool for centralized control and solidify its grip over every aspect of people’s lives. By 2030, the world will be transformed if China is successful in achieving its aims of defeating the United States and winning the AI race.

 

America cannot afford to fall behind. Thankfully, we have a playbook that works. Thirty years ago, leaders of both parties in Washington had the wisdom to adopt a light-touch approach to regulating the internet. Policymakers consciously chose to preempt state-level taxation, to reject “undue restrictions” on the nascent digital economy, and to allow Americans to experiment with this new technology. The result? Decades of American-led technological dominance and a rapid acceleration in living standards.

 

The Trump administration recently took a major step in the right direction by releasing America’s AI Action Plan. The president’s strategy embraces the idea that the government should enable, not inhibit, AI development. It calls for removing outdated federal regulations and denying taxpayer money to states that are “unduly restrictive” of these innovative tools. But executive orders can only go so far. Lawmakers must work alongside the president and pass legislation to promote long-term AI growth and global adoption of American AI technology.

 

Toward that end, I have developed a policy framework for American AI leadership, which starts with the Strengthening Artificial intelligence Normalization and Diffusion by Oversight and eXperimentation, or SANDBOX Act, a bill that simplifies federal regulation for AI use.

 

A regulatory sandbox — a concept recommended by the Trump AI Action Plan — is an alternative to the inflexible and often ineffective way the government traditionally oversees private industry. Rather than forcing AI developers to design inferior products in order to comply with outdated federal rules, my legislation gives entrepreneurs the room to breathe, build, and compete within a defined space bounded by guardrails for safety and accountability.

 

The benefits of this strategy are real. In the U.K., where regulatory sandboxes are used in the financial and health care sectors among others, AI-driven stroke diagnostics helped to triple the percentage of patients regaining functional independence. Here at home, however, AI developers have been hamstrung by rigid regulations surrounding electronic medical records, preventing researchers from developing or deploying AI tools that could save and transform lives.

 

Under the SANDBOX Act, an AI user or developer would identify obstructive regulations and request a waiver or modification, which the government may grant for two years through a written agreement. Participants would still have to mitigate health, consumer, or other risks and regularly disclose benefits or unanticipated incidents to the agency.

 

Of course, a regulatory sandbox does not allow a company to avoid enforcement of the law more generally, and the current AI litigation docket is a testament to our legal system’s ability to adapt to technological change. Existing criminal, tort, contract, child safety, and consumer protection laws already govern AI, making state efforts to impose AI-specific regulations — such as those in Colorado, California, or in more than a thousand other state-level bills — needlessly duplicative and punitive. Instead of excessively regulating a new product based on fear, my bill would help our country regulate AI based on evidence. Congress would receive detailed periodic reports on which outdated rules were waived or modified most frequently so lawmakers could decide whether to make such regulatory changes permanent.

 

The stakes are high for how America approaches AI. If we fail to beat China in the AI race, we risk a global order where freedom is eclipsed by state-run surveillance and coercion. But if we win, worldwide adoption of AI will be anchored by the American values of liberty, human dignity, and the rule of law.

 

Congress is now facing a fork in the road. One path leads toward a complicated patchwork of heavy-handed government regulation that only Big Tech, with its armies of lawyers and lobbyists, can navigate. The other path, as reflected in the SANDBOX Act, embraces small-business innovation and entrepreneurial freedom — a proven approach that with the internet has already revolutionized our economy, improved our quality of life, and made America the global leader in the digital age.

 

For our future and our prosperity, I suggest we put our trust in the ingenuity of the American people rather than in power-hungry bureaucrats or Chinese communist tyrants.