Calls to slow down development of the most powerful AI models are colliding with an $800 billion investment boom. Could an AI slowdown tank the US economy?
The artificial intelligence industry in the United States has powerful forces pulling it in completely opposite directions.
Top AI industry leaders are jointly calling for a slowdown in the pace of development, while US President Donald Trump wants to go full steam ahead to beat China and has announced a so-called “Super Intelligence Force,” headed up by former SEC boss Jay Clayton. Meanwhile, the five major US based AI hyperscalers are expected to tip $800 billion into the AI buildout this year according to Goldman Sachs.With the US stock market and GPD growth increasingly dependent on the health of the AI industry, could a slowdown in the pace of AI development tank the economy?
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wants to “pace the frontier,” slowing advances in the most powerful AI models so that safety research can catch up. His September proposal combines independent evaluators inside labs, shared safety standards and limits on developers in democratic countries, and eventual international coordination, with countries including China.
OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Google DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis and xAI founder Elon Musk have endorsed his approach. While Amodei explicitly says pacing would allow model training and technical progress to continue, some politicians want to impose a harder brake. Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Greg Casar’s “Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act”, introduced Sept. 23, would permanently prohibit superintelligence and pause advanced AI development until federal safety rules are established.
Senator Elizabeth Warren also wants an immediate pause. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen supports pacing frontier AI research. But President Donald Trump opposes a slowdown, arguing that restrictions would benefit China and warning: “Don’t kill the Golden Goose!” Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg favors each lab determining its own safe pace, citing competition and liability as incentives.
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang similarly urges rapid development, while explicitly supporting company-specific pauses when products are unsafe or control is uncertain. Their objection is to a coordinated slowdown, rather than every form of restraint.
On Sept. 29, Trump and leading AI executives signed a voluntary safety accord centered on internal controls, independent audits and oversight. The agreement establishes safety commitments without imposing a collective development pause.
But with global anxiety around the technology growing, the next high profile AI safety incident could renew the push toward a slowdown.
A huge amount of money is currently pouring into the AI build out. SoftBank launched another $10 billion and €1 billion ($1.15 billion) bond sale recently to fund its OpenAI investment. It would be Asia-Pacific and Japan’s largest non-financial corporate bond deal and among this year’s 20 largest globally, according to Reuters. SoftBank had already invested about $54.6 billion in OpenAI by the end of July.
Data suggests that the pace of AI investment is growing at such a rate, that it is having a significant impact on the broader US economy. A January St. Louis Fed analysis estimated that broad AI-related investment accounted for 39% of real GDP growth during the first nine months of 2025:
An AI slowdown would not automatically result in economic disaster in the US — but it would certainly have an impact. It could lead to a change in market expectations, cause companies to cancel infrastructure plans, see investors reprice AI assets and lenders to withdraw financing.
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