US President Donald Trump\u2019s administration will redirect billions of dollars in federal research funding away from universities to individual scientists and AI-focused projects, arguing the overhaul is needed to help the US compete with China.<\/p>\n
The plan, outlined in a White House Office of Science and Technology Policy report released on Tuesday, comes as the administration warns that China has reached parity with the US in research and development spending over the past 20 years, \u201ca situation America did not face even during the Cold War\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeyond the sheer scale of its spending, Beijing is treating scientific research capacity as a central pillar of global competition, elevating decision-making to the highest level and taking a tightly integrated approach to partnerships across its sectors,\u201d the report, \u201cScience: A New Golden Age\u201d, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis all-of-society approach has allowed China to surge resources towards basic scientific research, advance rapidly in technologies of key national interest, and drive improvements in its innovation process, where entrenched interests have resisted change.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response, the US will reconfigure its annual federal R&D budget of around US$200 billion away from funding colleges and \u201clegacy institutions\u201d and towards individual scientists instead, in pursuit of faster and more \u201cagile\u201d new research organisations with AI as a core focus, the report said.<\/p>\n