National security and military analyst Dr. Rebecca Grant joins'Fox & Friends First' to discuss President Donald Trump's historic business-focused trip to the Middle East and why a Trump-Putin meeting could be essential for peace in Ukraine. President Donald Trump secured 2 trillion worth of deals with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE during his trip to the Middle East last week in what some have argued is a move to counter China's influence in the region. While China has increasingly bolstered its commercial ties with top Middle Eastern nations who have remained steadfast in their refusal to pick sides amid growing geopolitical tension between Washington and Beijing, Trump may have taken steps to give the U.S. an edge over its chief competitor. But concern has mounted after Trump reversed a Biden-era policy – which banned the sale of AI-capable chips to the UAE and Saudi Arabia – that highly coveted U.S. technologies could potentially fall into the hands of Chinese companies, and in extension, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). U.S. President Donald Trump walks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman during a welcoming ceremony in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 13, 2025.

When asked who won the recent presidential election in Taiwan, the world's most advanced Chinese-language chatbot gives a confusing answer. "Lai Ching-te," Baidu's Ernie Bot accurately says. But then it adds: "No matter how the situation in Taiwan changes, the basic fact is that there's only one China" -- a comment that echoes what Beijing's diplomats said after the U.S.-friendly candidate won the race to be the next president of the island China wants to someday rule. The political slant to what should be a straightforward question and answer is a problem for Taiwan, where officials fear influential tech platforms from China, such as TikTok and Xiaohongshu, are eroding the island's cultural and political edifices.

Nowhere is the competition in developing artificial intelligence fiercer than in the accelerating rivalry between the United States and China. At stake in this competition is not just who leads in AI but who sets the rules for how it is used around the world. China is forging a new model of digital authoritarianism at home and is actively exporting it abroad. It has launched a national-level AI development plan with the intent to be the global leader by 2030. And it is spending billions on AI deployment, training more AI scientists and aggressively courting experts from Silicon Valley.

In terms of AI productivity, 2019 would be hard to beat. Twenty-nine new and updated political schemes were announced for domesticating artificial intelligence, according to the United Nations. But one announcement this year -- the formation of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence -- obviates or overshadows most of the AI development plans published since 2016, when China pushed the world's first statement out. The global partnership, or GPAI, solidified last month. And it only happened after Western democracies (notably the United States) realized that all the go-it-alone development and control approaches in the world will not stop China from dominating the technology all by itself.

China's technological ambitions are eliciting rare bipartisan agreement in Washington, with lawmakers considering investing tens of billions of dollars in America's semiconductor industry over the next five to 10 years to help the United States retain an edge over Beijing. A bipartisan measure introduced this week is one of several proposals that would provide substantial funding for the semiconductor industry, which manufactures chips that serve as the tiny brains or memory of electronic devices from smartphones to fitness trackers. The efforts reflect a shifting consensus in Washington, as lawmakers look to more expansive government intervention in private markets to help American firms compete. That includes Republicans, who have long criticized government-led industrial plans as inefficient and redolent of communism but have watched with dismay as such efforts in China have allowed it to dominate industries from steel and solar panels to shipbuilding. The future of the semiconductor industry is viewed as particularly significant because it is a foundational technology that can give nations an edge in innovation.

The partnership launched Thursday after a virtual meeting between national technology ministers. It was nearly two years after the leaders of Canada and France announced they were forming a group to guide the responsible adoption of AI based on shared principles of "human rights, inclusion, diversity, innovation and economic growth."

In this year's Financial Budget, Finance Minister had mandated NITI Aayog, a policy think tank of the Government of India, to establish the National Program on AI to guide R&D in frontier technologies. In a result of this mandate, NITI Aayog today presented its discussion paper on National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence (NSAI). In its discussion paper on national strategy for artificial intelligence released today, NITI aayog has identified sectors -- healthcare, agriculture, education, infrastructure and transportation as key five sectors that can benefit from AI adoption. The NSAI paper gives many disruptive suggestion including one to utilize market place models for data, annotation, and deployable solutions in AI. We need to democratise access to and development of this technology.