AI, Policy, and Power: Washington and Big Tech Converge

The 2026 Consumer Electronics Show marked a subtle but meaningful shift in tone, as leading technology companies emphasized alignment with Washington’s artificial-intelligence priorities, reflecting AI’s emergence as a matter of national economic strategy rather than a purely commercial or consumer-driven technology.

CES, long associated with product launches and consumer-facing innovation, increasingly resembled an infrastructure and systems forum, with executives framing AI development around long-term deployment, competitiveness, and the foundational inputs required to sustain scale. The change signals a recalibration in the relationship between government and the technology sector, shaped less by regulatory friction and more by shared strategic objectives.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang used his keynote appearance to underscore this shift, presenting new AI models and advanced computing initiatives while emphasizing the transition of AI from digital applications into physical systems. The message reinforced the industry’s focus on compute capacity, energy availability, and the operational realities of deploying AI at scale.

Government participation at CES was more visible than in prior years, with senior officials engaging directly with industry leaders on issues ranging from competitiveness to infrastructure readiness. The presence highlighted a growing public-private interface around AI as a strategic platform, rather than a discretionary technology cycle.

As policy and industry converge around artificial intelligence, capital attention shifts toward long-duration themes — semiconductor ecosystems, compute and data infrastructure, energy and grid capacity, and the regulatory clarity that shapes cross-border investment. CES 2026 offered an early view of that alignment, with implications extending well beyond the technology sector itself.