Washington DC [US], January 29 : In her first press briefing on Tuesday (local time), US Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt while talking about DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence company that develops open-source large language models, said that as per US President Trump, this is a wake up call for American AI.
When asked if Trump saw anything fishy about DeepSeek- either its origins or cost and if China's ability to make these models quicker cheaper affect US thinking about expanding generation data centers, Leavitt said that Trump appointed the first AI czar to ensure American AI dominance.
"The President was asked about DeepSeek last night on Air Force 1 when he gaggled for the third or fourth time throughout the weekend with members of the traveling press corps. The President said that he believes that this is a wake-up call to the American AI industry. The last administration sat on their hands and allowed China to rapidly develop this AI program," she said.
She said that the National Security Council (NSC) is reviewing any possible security threats.
"So President Trump believes in restoring American AI dominance and that's why he took very strong executive action this past week to sign executive orders to roll back some of the honorous regulations on the AI industry. President Trump has also proudly appointed the first AI in crypto czar at this White House David Sacks...and his team is here working every single day to ensure American AI dominance. As for the National Security implications, National Security Council (NSC) are looking into what those may be," she said.
When asked if there is a fear that the US either is falling or has fallen behind in the AI race, Leavitt confidently replied, "No, the President is confident that we will restore American dominance in AI."
Leavitt further said that Trump signed an order that stopped US funding of USD 37 million to the WHO.
"This is again incredibly important to ensure that this Administration is taking into consideration how hard the American people are working and their tax dollars actually matter to this Administration. You know just during this pause Doge and OMB have actually found that there was USD 37 million that was about to go out the door to the World Health Organization. President Trump with the swipe of his pen in that executive order said US no longer wants to be a part of so that wouldn't be in line with the president's agenda," she said.