AI Fuels Great Divergence Debate
Introduction
For centuries, most of the world’s economies grew at a similarly slow rate. However, a “Great Divergence” occurred with the Industrial Revolution, causing industrializing nations to accelerate their growth relative to the rest of the world.[1] Artificial intelligence (AI) is a potentially transformative technology that is often compared to the Industrial Revolution.
However, we are witnessing clear leaders in AI investment, performance, and adoption metrics across different nations. The Trump administration is laying the groundwork for American AI dominance by accelerating innovation, infrastructure development, and deregulation while establishing global dominance through technology exports. If the AI revolution is as transformative as the Industrial Revolution, should we expect this to lead to a second Great Divergence? Of course, the future impact of AI is uncertain, so in this paper we focus on the empirical data that can be seen and measured today.
We begin by reviewing analyses of the potential for AI-led economic growth (Section 2) and then discussing estimates of AI’s impact on both GDP and the labor force. Recognizing that these impacts are uncertain and thus need constant monitoring, in Section 3 we highlight metrics for tracking the breakneck pace of investment, performance, and adoption of AI. We then discuss how different countries are faring on these metrics (Section 4). The incredible speed of change cannot be overstated; many of these metrics are doubling every few months and increasing manyfold each year. This means that the AI of the future will likely be very different from the AI of today. We conclude by reviewing the actions President Trump is taking to ensure that America continues to lead on AI (Section 5). As the President said: “America is the country that started the AI race. And as President of the United States, I’m here today to declare that America is going to win it.”[2]
[1] Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton University Press, 2000), https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7sv80
[2] “Trump Advances US Leadership in AI,” Editorials, 2025,https://editorials.voa.gov/a/trump-advances-us-leadership-in-ai/8050987.html
https://www.whitehouse.gov/research/2026/01/artificial-intelligence-and-the-great-divergence/
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