SCOOP: Sen. Tim Scott's takeaway from his closed-door meeting with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang
Sen. Tim Scott and a group of Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee met with NVIDIA's CEO this week. Here's what Scott thought.
The Trump administration is in an AI arms race against China, as Interior Secretary Doug Burgum often cautions. One company and one man, NVIDIA and its CEO, Jensen Huang, are at the core of many of these discussions, and Sen. Tim Scott (R., S.C.) brought Huang in for a closed-door meeting with his Senate GOP Banking Committee colleagues to discuss “AI’s growth and its impact on our financial system.”
Scott, the chair of the committee, explained following the meeting that “artificial intelligence is reshaping our markets and our economy…As Chairman, I’ve been encouraged by AI’s potential to strengthen financial literacy, protect investors, and help America stay ahead of China.”
“Maintaining that edge also means protecting sensitive U.S. technology through strong export controls and ensuring innovators have access to the capital they need to build here at home, including modernizing how companies raise funds in both private and public markets,” Scott added. “Our focus is on practical, responsible policies that keep America competitive.”
For years, Scott has led on pushing the Senate to pass what he’s called “sharp and tailored use of our economic security tools to maximize their effectiveness against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),” criticizing the Biden administration for “put[ting] politics over policy — from attacks against the legal firearms industry to pursuing the limits of climate and green energy financing — which benefit the CCP at the expense of hardworking Americans.”
A Senate insider told the Washington Reporter that “Tim Scott’s views on AI regulations matter because his colleagues respect him and look to him for political guidance on a dicey issue. Scott not only leads the NRSC but he won his last race 25 points — 8 points more than President Trump did — even in a bad year.”
Huang’s meeting with Scott followed his sit-down with President Donald Trump, in which the duo discussed chip exports and whether America should regulate AI on a state-by-state basis, which Huang opposed, saying that it would “drag this industry into a halt.”