In Hitting China on Trade, Trump Is Seen Neglecting U.S. Emerging Industries

Many experts worry the United States is not doing enough to help its own advanced industries compete — not just against China, but the rest of the world.

Experts in artificial intelligence say the administration should push for more investment in academic and government research, instead of cutting back on scientific research across the government. They say administration immigration policies have spooked many foreign-born artificial intelligence researchers based in the United States.

Canada, South Korea, France and Britain have ramped up government spending in an effort to ensure that they retain and attract top talent and promote artificial intelligence research. China has unveiled a plan to become the world leader in the field and create a domestic industry worth $150 billion by 2030, committing billions of dollars to the effort.

At the tail end of the Obama administration, the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the White House began to address the industry’s development. But after Mr. Trump took office, the office’s work in that area seemed to stagnate. The administration has yet to name a director for the office, which is currently run by its deputy chief technology officer, Michael Kratsios, who used to work with Silicon Valley venture capitalist Peter Thiel. It recently convened a meeting of companies working in artificial intelligence at the White House, in which Mr. Kratsios indicated the administration would take a hands-off approach to the industry’s development.

“If we don’t have the government setting big goals, then we will just see business as usual: The private sector will continue to optimize for its own problems, pulling people out of universities and not really giving back to government because that is not its priority,” said Jack Clark, who oversees policy for OpenAI, an independent artificial intelligence lab based in San Francisco. “Academia will get left behind and the government will have no clear mandate in this very important area.”

The United States has a long history of industrial policy, including the Obama administration’s bailout of the automotive industry during the financial crisis and its subsequent efforts to foster advanced manufacturing.

“We sought to have a strategic focus,” said Gene Sperling, who directed the National Economic Council for much of the Obama administration, “that did accept that there were strong positive impacts for innovation and jobs in not just protecting the manufacturing base — as was done with the auto rescue — but making the U.S. the attractive place to build what comes next in manufacturing as well.”