Washington is having the wrong debate about artificial intelligence.

Listen to lawmakers, technology executives, and media commentators, and you might conclude the central question is whether AI should be regulated. Some worry about chatbots. Others focus on deepfakes, privacy, or the future of work. Those concerns matter. But they are not the question that will decide whether America leads the next century.

The real question is whether the United States still possesses the foundations necessary to lead in artificial intelligence and whether Congress will act before others write the rules for us.

Recently, a senior executive at a major high-technology firm, speaking on background, described a perspective absent from Washington’s debates. Artificial intelligence, he told me, is not merely software. It rests on a foundation of semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, electrical power, scientific talent, and industrial capacity. Remove any one pillar, and America’s technological ambitions begin to crumble.

That observation echoes lessons I learned during years evaluating emerging military technologies at the Pentagon. Nations rarely lose their strategic edge overnight. They lose it gradually, by neglecting the foundations that made success possible in the first place.

America should heed that lesson now.

An Ecosystem, Not a Gadget

Artificial intelligence may become the defining technology of this century, but it is already exposing deeper questions about our national priorities. Do we educate enough engineers? Can we build infrastructure fast enough? Do we generate sufficient energy? Can we manufacture advanced technologies in the quantities needed to remain competitive? Are we willing to make the long-term investments competitiveness requires?

Beijing has already answered those questions.

The Chinese Communist Party treats artificial intelligence as a strategic asset tied directly to national power, integrating it with semiconductor production, advanced manufacturing, military modernization, education, and industrial planning. China has poured tens of billions of dollars into chip self-sufficiency through state-backed investment funds, most recently a third fund worth $47.5 billion, and continues mandating that Chinese fabrication plants use domestically produced equipment. Whether or not one agrees with Beijing’s methods, its leaders understand something many Americans do not: artificial intelligence is not a standalone technology. It is an ecosystem.

America too often treats these issues as separate debates. One committee discusses AI. Another discusses energy. A third focuses on education. A fourth addresses trade. A fifth considers defense modernization.

China sees a single strategic competition. Congress should as well.

The Chip at the Center

Every advanced AI system depends on increasingly sophisticated semiconductors. Those same chips power military platforms, communications networks, financial systems, and the smartphone in your pocket, along with countless other products Americans use every day.

The executive believes America remains ahead in advanced semiconductor design and fabrication. We still have extraordinary research institutions, world-class innovators, and leading technology companies.

But he also warned that China is closing the gap faster than most Americans appreciate. Industry analysts now project China’s share of global chipmaking capacity will grow from roughly 25% in 2024 to 42% by 2028. The challenge facing the United States is not simply outpacing a competitor. It is avoiding self-inflicted wounds.

Overly burdensome permitting slows construction. Regulatory uncertainty discourages investment. Workforce shortages limit growth. In STEM, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, education fails to produce enough trained engineers and scientists. These problems receive far less attention than the latest product announcement, yet they may prove far more consequential over the long run.

Power Is Policy

Few Americans realize how much electricity artificial intelligence consumes. According to a Department of Energy-backed Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report, U.S. data-center electricity use has roughly tripled over the past decade and could double or triple again by 2028, consuming as much as 12% of total American electricity demand. Massive data centers, advanced fabrication facilities, and future computing infrastructure all depend on abundant, reliable power, an issue I have raised in these pages before.

Put simply, energy policy is becoming technology policy. A nation that cannot generate enough electricity cannot lead in artificial intelligence, regardless of how brilliant its software engineers may be. That reality should concern policymakers who have spent years restricting reliable energy production while simultaneously promoting energy-intensive technologies.

If America intends to lead in this new era, Congress must think beyond algorithms. It should encourage expanded power generation, modernize the electrical grid, streamline permitting, and support technologies capable of meeting future demand. This is no longer simply a debate about environmental preferences. It is a matter of economic competitiveness and national security.

People, Not Just Processors

The executive kept returning to one theme: talent. Semiconductors do not design themselves. AI models do not emerge spontaneously. Scientific breakthroughs still depend on disciplined, highly-trained people.

America’s long-term advantage has never been government planning. It has been the creativity, innovation, and determination of free people operating within a system that rewards excellence. That advantage cannot be taken for granted. Congress should treat STEM education, workforce development, apprenticeships, and advanced research as strategic priorities. The technology race will not be won by machines alone. It will be won by people.

A Framework, Not a Free-for-All

This is where legislation becomes necessary. The United States needs a coherent national framework for artificial intelligence, not because government should control innovation, but because government has a responsibility to establish conditions that allow innovation to flourish while protecting citizens and national interests.

Congress should secure semiconductor supply chains, strengthen protections against foreign intellectual-property theft, establish reasonable safeguards against fraud and foreign influence operations enabled by these new tools, and protect constitutional liberties as governments and corporations gain access to increasingly powerful technology.

Most importantly, Congress should provide a coherent national strategy rather than leaving states, corporations, foreign governments, and bureaucracies to write competing rules. If Congress fails to act, others will fill the vacuum. Some states are already imposing their own requirements. Europe continues exporting its regulatory model. China advances an authoritarian vision linking technology to state control. Major technology companies increasingly shape standards through private decisions affecting millions of Americans.

The absence of congressional leadership is itself a decision, one that leaves others to determine the future.

Faithful Stewards of What We Inherited

Christians should care about this issue because biblical stewardship requires more than reacting to events. It requires preparing wisely for the future. When King David gathered the resources to build the temple, he reminded Israel where those resources had come from in the first place: “For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you” (1 Chronicles 29:14). Semiconductors, electricity, scientific talent, and industrial capacity are not American inventions in the deepest sense. They are gifts entrusted to this nation — and to this generation — for a purpose.

The question before us is not whether America deserves these advantages, but whether we will steward them as faithfully as we received them. As I argue in my book, “The New AI Cold War,” nations that treat their resources as a sacred inheritance, their people, their land, their ingenuity, will shape what comes next. Nations that treat those same resources as entitlements, to be spent without renewal, will not.

Artificial intelligence will undoubtedly transform society. But the technology itself is not the central issue. The deeper question is whether America still possesses the vision, discipline, and confidence necessary to build the future.

Congress should stop treating artificial intelligence as merely a regulatory challenge and start recognizing it as a national one. The nations that lead in semiconductors, energy, education, manufacturing, and innovation will shape what comes next. America can still be that nation.

But leadership is never automatic. It must be earned, protected, and renewed.

Congress should begin that work now, before someone else writes the rules.