WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump joined some of America’s most powerful technology executives Thursday at a summit that the White House billed as the start of a “golden age” of American science.
Elon Musk, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, AMD CEO Lisa Su, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Dell founder Michael Dell gathered with Trump and a host of administration officials and scientific luminaries for the Science: A New Golden Age summit at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
“We live in an age of American wonders and technological marvels, and with the help of the brilliant men and women here today, we will always be on top,” Trump said.
Trump awarded the National Medal of Science to Musk, Brin, Huang and Su. He awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Nadella and Dell.
Trump presented each of the recipients with medals and certificates of honor, later asking some of their family members to join him on stage for photos.
“You are going to go down in the annals of history as being great,” Trump told the recipients.
White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said in a statement: “The Trump Administration is grateful for the contributions of these incredible leaders in science and technology. These recipients help ensure that America remains at the forefront of the world in innovation.”
The celebration came just hours after Vice President JD Vance announced that the Trump administration would suspend Microsoft, whose CEO was the event’s guest of honor, along with several other companies from a program that allows foreign workers to apply for green cards.
Several speakers at the summit stressed the importance of immigrants to America’s scientific power.
“I was an immigrant and my parents brought us here to pursue the American dream,” Huang told NBC News as he walked across the room with his parents. “It’s an incredible honor and something that can only happen here in America.”
Carnegie Mellon University President Farnam Jahanian stressed the importance of a welcoming immigration system during a conversation about the future of America’s research universities. Jahanian pointed out that China produces more engineers and scientists than the United States, Europe and Japan combined.
“We need to have an immigration policy that can recruit the best talent to come to this country, as an immigrant who has benefited from the opportunities this country offers,” Jahanian said. “It’s important to recruit the best talent to come here so they stay here and contribute.” »
The summit, an all-day event intended to shine a spotlight on America’s scientific enterprise, built on a July report from Michael Kratsios, head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, on how the Trump administration aims to reinvigorate scientific discovery and innovation.
“This is the golden age,” Trump said as he took the stage to kick off the celebration’s afternoon program. “For a change, we are an extremely high IQ audience,” he said, drawing laughter from the audience.
The Science: A New Golden Age report and Thursday’s meeting aim to combat what the White House sees as growing scientific bureaucracy and stagnant innovation. Kratsios pointed to the exploding costs of clinical trials and the declining rates of new drugs approved for patient use as examples of increased scientific slowness.
The report says the administration will streamline funding for promising scientists instead of channeling it through established institutions.
The event began with a series of announcements regarding funding for new scientific initiatives. Among them is a pledge of about $2.4 billion in AI computing and science tools from leading U.S. AI companies for federal agencies working on a variety of science issues prioritized by the White House. Areas include quantum algorithms, AI-driven physical laboratories, and improving the efficiency of nuclear engineering.
Kratsios also presided over the announcement by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and Energy Secretary Chris Wright of a new partnership to adopt nuclear technology in space exploration.
“Thanks to President Trump, America’s nuclear renaissance is reaching a new frontier,” Wright said. Isaacman said nuclear power would allow NASA spacecraft to travel further and operate longer, “opening up a whole new frontier for exploration and discovery.”
The day focused on a handful of scientific fields, including artificial intelligence – now called “super intelligence” by the Trump administration – nuclear energy, quantum computing and metascience, or the study of science itself.
“Superintelligence is going to be the biggest breakthrough for scientists,” Kratsios said as he opened the celebration. Representatives from leading U.S. AI companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Amazon Web Services and Micron Technology, took the stage to announce their new partnerships with the federal government.
Various scientists from academic institutions and companies gave a series of lightning talks on their research, largely focused on nuclear energy and the use of AI to accelerate their research.
Speakers vacillated between the use of “AI” and “IS” — the term favored by administration officials since Trump issued an executive order renaming the technology.
John Martinis, a physics professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Nobel Prize winner in physics, said the technology is already accelerating his group’s research. When asked what a golden age of science would look like to him, Martinis said he didn’t need to look far.
“I feel like we’re there right now,” he said. “What’s happening with SI is really exciting.”
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