Move Fast, Break Things: The Policy Origins of Today’s AI Race

Today’s U.S.-China AI race is often framed as the defining technological competition of our era. It is marked by a surge of subsidies, tax credits, and public-private investment, as governments commit billions to AI, data centers, and semiconductor infrastructure in pursuit of technological advantage.

This cutthroat competition may seem like a new dynamic. But the United States has seen a version of this before—and not with Beijing. At the start of our current tech age, U.S. states competed against one another, offering tax breaks, subsidies, and deregulation to attract high-tech companies, each aiming to become the next Silicon Valley.

Nur Laiq traces the deals, alliances, and policy choices that helped reshape the American economy during this period. As governors and legislators competed for technological growth, oversight shifted and regulatory guardrails evolved, contributing to a model that continues to shape how emerging technologies are governed today. By revisiting this earlier inter-state tech competition, Dr. Laiq and science historian Marc Aidinoff consider what happens when policymaking becomes a race to move fastest.

Speakers

 Dr. Nur Laiq is an Emerging Technology & Geopolitics Fellow and an Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. She is writing a book on the politics of the contemporary tech age that treats policy not as background noise but as the real engine of the tech economy. Laiq is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center on International Cooperation and the International Peace Institute, where she advises on AI governance policymaking. She has worked in the public policy arena for over 15 years, with the UN, governments and think tanks. She has a DPhil from Oxford on Silicon Valley’s politics.

Dr. Marc Aidinoff is a historian of science, technology, and the state, as well as a public policymaker.  An assistant professor in the Department of History of Science at Harvard University, Aidinoff researches the interplay between digital technologies and domestic policy in the United States.