MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
A big focus of the Trump administration is to shore up U.S. dominance in cutting-edge technology, things like semiconductor chips and artificial intelligence. But President Trump has also been slashing employees at the very agency that works on these issues. NPR's Emily Feng has more.
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: The U.S.'s tech rivalry with China focuses a lot on semiconductors. Here's President Trump speaking in March, welcoming investment from a top Taiwanese chipmaker.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Semiconductors are the backbone of the 21st century economy. And really, without the semiconductors, there is no economy.
FENG: A key federal agency that oversees grants and research on AI and semiconductors is something called the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST. But about 500 employees there so far - nearly a sixth of the agency's headcount - have been terminated, part of a dramatic cost-cutting exercise led by Trump and his ally Elon Musk. Matt Schruers heads a tech industry group, and he warns hobbling NIST like this could cede AI competitiveness to China.
MATT SCHRUERS: At the end of the day, we want the global AI benchmark to be written in English, not Mandarin.
FENG: What he means is, he worries competing countries like China will take the lead to set standards for evaluating and regulating AI. Trump also paused a Biden-era initiative on AI standards, saying it was, quote, "a barrier to innovation." But all this has worried industry groups like Schruers'.
SCHRUERS: We run the risk that that open, flexible, inclusive approach is replaced by foreign actors that have an economic interest that is inconsistent with our own.
FENG: Many of those cut at NIST this year were working on semiconductor policies. NIST and the Trump White House didn't respond to NPR's request for comment, but Haley Stevens, a Democratic congresswoman from Michigan, says those job cuts are giving up huge long-term gains for not much in short-term savings.
HALEY STEVENS: We're talking, you know, pennies on the dollar, you know, in terms of what's the investment, you know, outcome there for us.
FENG: Plus the hiring freeze across the federal government has hamstrung research at NIST because they can't fill open positions. Zuoyue Wang, a professor at California State Polytechnic University who studies the history of science and politics, points out there have been cycles of big cuts to science and tech in the 1950s and then the 1970s, but they were reversed when the U.S. experienced its Sputnik moment.
ZUOYUE WANG: In 1957, that was so dramatic that the public paid attention to the perceived setback of American prestige in the world.
FENG: The Soviets had beat the U.S. in sending the first satellite - the Sputnik - into orbit around Earth. The U.S. reversed cuts to science and tech funding. But Wang says, this time around...
WANG: Absent of anything as dramatic as Sputnik, it's not clear that, you know, the public will react very strongly to federal cutbacks in funding for science.
FENG: At a House hearing on Capitol Hill this month, however, AI computer scientist Julia Stoyanovich testified...
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JULIA STOYANAVICH: We are in a Sputnik moment.
FENG: Given the emergence of the Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek this year.
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STOYANAVICH: The rapid rise, technical openness and competitive performance of DeepSeek have challenged the long-standing assumption that the U.S. would retain its global leadership in AI by default.
FENG: Wang, the historian, says public opinion is often reactive, and historically, support for science funding does not bounce back until the U.S. feels like it's already fallen behind. Emily Feng, NPR News, Washington.
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