ArgumentsMisguided Immigration Policies Are Endangering America’s AI Edge

The efforts to foster America’s developmentof artificial intelligence, including for military use, typically overlook how the U.S. current advantage depends on immigrants. “Without immigration reforms, this country’s days as the world’s AI leader may be numbered,” Zachary Arnold writes in Defense One, adding:

Foreign-born talent fuels the U.S. AI sector at every level. Immigrants lead many of America’s top AI companies, contribute groundbreaking original research in machine learning and other emerging disciplines, and handle much of the essential, ongoing work to deploy and manage AI technologies. Immigrants comprise two-thirds of U.S. graduate students in AI-relevant fields and founded many of America’s most successful companies active in AI, including Google, Tesla, and chipmaker Nvidia.

America’s world-class universities, leading companies, and high quality of life continue to attract the world’s best and brightest in AI, but an inflexible and restrictive skilled immigration system increasingly stands in their way. Many of the biggest problems have existed for years, if not decades. For example, annual limits on employment-based green cards haven’t budged since 1990, even as the national economy has doubled in size. Other problems are newer. The White House has voiced support for “merit-based” immigration, but in practice, stringent new adjudication policies have made applying for skilled immigrant status a longer, costlier, and more uncertain process. Processing delays are getting worse, prompting bipartisan concern in Congress and contributing to application backlogs in the millions.

These problems are undermining America’s AI sector.

“Immigration reform of any sort may be a tall order nowadays, but the dawn of the AI age is reason enough to redouble those efforts,” Arnold writes.