AI Firms Pour Record Funds into Washington Lobbying to Block Regulations

Major U.S. artificial intelligence companies are pouring record-breaking amounts of money into lobbying in Washington to shape regulations surrounding cutting-edge AI model reviews and data centers in their favor, the Financial Times reported on the 26th local time.

According to U.S. federal government public disclosure data, OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, spent a record 2.22 million dollars (approx. 3.25 billion won) on lobbying in the first half of this year, nearly doubling compared to the same period last year.

Anthropic also spent 3.53 million dollars (5.17 billion won) in the first half of this year.

This represents a nearly threefold surge compared to the first half of last year.

Google and Microsoft (MS) also poured record-high amounts into quarterly lobbying since 2020.

Industry insiders interpret that as AI companies face multi-pronged political pressure, they are pumping massive funds into Washington with the intent to build a strong base of political influence.

Currently, U.S. government screening regulations on the release of AI models are cited as the biggest lobbying issue.

As the possibility grows that the government will directly intervene in the commercialization of new models—which serve as a core revenue source for AI companies—the industry's guard has been significantly raised.

In fact, last month, the U.S. government issued export control guidelines entirely blocking all foreign nationals from accessing Anthropic's Claude and Mythos models, citing national security reasons.

Other key lobbying issues include data center construction, power supply policies, and rules determining whether to disclose the parameters of AI models.

Parameters are computational variables involved in AI prediction and analysis, serving as a core figure to estimate the complexity and scale of an AI model.

The Financial Times projected that rather than pushing for industry-wide collective demands through such lobbying, AI companies will likely take individual paths depending on each firm's immediate issues and interests.

This is because AI regulation is a highly complex matter spanning politics, environment, trade, and defense, and the Donald Trump administration also prefers individual responses while avoiding the heavy burden of universal rules.

For example, unlike major big tech firms such as Google and MS, Anthropic takes a stance of aggressively calling for regulations against Chinese open-source AI, and added the U.S. Department of the Treasury as a lobbying target institution for the first time this quarter.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently stated that the U.S. is reviewing the imposition of sanctions regarding allegations that Chinese AI developers misappropriated the intellectual property (IP) of firms like Anthropic.

(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.