One further force promoting AI innovation could be defence spending. America puts only a tiny fraction of its $850bn defence budget into AI. Silicon Valley executives hope that the Trump administration will allow more participation by startups building AI weapons and systems in the competition for defence contracts.

Elon Musk, the close Trump adviser who has his own AI company and was notably not at the press conference, mocked the effort relentlessly online. “They don’t actually have the money,” he posted on X.

Stargate is supposed to spend $500 billion on AI infrastructure, President Trump said. But Elon Musk suggested that the venture had much less cash.