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Opinion
Likening Trump’s AI mission to the Manhattan Project is sadly mistaken
Rather than owning the engine of innovation, Washington is standing in line like a customer to buy tech services it doesn’t control or understand
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Zhang Zhipeng is a research fellow at Fudan University specialising in the philosophy of technology, AI geopolitics and comparative Chinese-Western cultural studies.
US President Donald Trump last month signed an executive order for the “Genesis Mission”, a national campaign to use artificial intelligence (AI) to boost scientific breakthroughs. In the opening section, the mission is explicitly described as “comparable in urgency and ambition to the Manhattan Project”.
The comparison is compelling, but also misleading. At first glance, the order evokes the image of America in the 1940s, muscular and confident, mobilising the whole nation to end World War II. A close reading, however, reveals a different reality.
Los Alamos in 1942 bears little resemblance to Silicon Valley in 2025. The difference is not technical but structural. With Washington planning to integrate resources from the Department of Energy and tech giants in California, the Genesis Mission signals a fundamental retreat of US state capacity: America has devolved from a sovereign owner to a mere tenant.
The Manhattan Project – to produce the first nuclear weapons – was defined by state sovereignty. Although private contractors like Chrysler and DuPont were involved, the federal government was the undisputed architect. It seized the land, hired the scientists and set the agenda – and, most importantly, it controlled the research patents. The state owned the engine of innovation.
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