As the United States gears up to celebrate a signature innovation — modern democracy! — American industry is pushing to lead in the high-tech innovation race of the future.

• From the White House to state capitals, leaders are reshaping how America innovates, and they're placing high-stakes bets on AI and science that may set the course for the next 250 years.

⚠️ But America's domination isn't guaranteed — especially if it places the wrong bets, write Axios senior tech policy reporter Ashley Gold and editor Mackenzie Weinger.

• To help explain how today's policies are shaping the future, we isolated three pillars driving our next era of innovation:

1. Betting big on robotics: The next era won't be won in the cloud. It'll be won on factory floors.

• The U.S. leads today in large language models and foundational AI. But integrating AI into physical systems — in other words, creating practical uses that improve our lives — will matter more than flashy LLM breakthroughs.

🤖 That's where robots come in.

• The number of new robots deployed each year has more than doubled from a decade ago, now topping 500,000 units globally.
• But Beijing is leading the robot revolution: China has over 2 million industrial robots inside its factories — five times more than the U.S.

🔎 What we're watching: The White House is reportedly considering an executive order that could spur production of robotics in the U.S. as part of a push to reshore manufacturing.

2. Going all in on data centers and AI infrastructure: Robots could build the future, but data centers will power it. The Trump administration has made it a policy priority to expand the infrastructure behind the AI boom.

• 📣 President Trump issued an executive order last July to speed up AI data center projects, calling for faster and more efficient permitting approval.

🔎 What we're watching: Local tensions around the impact that massive data centers have on electricity prices and quality of life are intensifying, and some communities have blocked projects entirely.

3. Relying on industry — and regulating less. The new rulebook is to let the market lead: move fast, regulate later and let that ethos pave the way for the next generation of innovation.

• The government is pulling back from bankrolling the kind of basic research that previously made America a tech superpower.
• Instead, it's leaning into a market-driven system of innovation spurred by venture capital cash, Big Tech action and Silicon Valley's influence on policy.

📉 By the numbers: Federal money funded 67% of research and development in the 1960s. Now, it's just 19%, according to the most recent NSF data.

• The private sector now funds about 75% of domestic R&D.

🔎 What we're watching: In the absence of major legislation or regulations providing AI rules of the road, procurement is policy. The government is shaping the future of innovation through its contracts and partnerships.

• Read on for a snapshot of transformational AI innovations we're tracking.

Fusion could be commercially possible within a few years — thanks to AI, Axios energy correspondent Amy Harder writes.

• Why it matters: Fusion has eluded scientists for decades.

💬 "I had my first congressional hearing on fusion 45 years ago, and the experts on the panel said it's 50 years out. So I'm getting excited," quipped former Vice President Al Gore, now a leading environmentalist and cleantech investor, in an interview with Axios.

• Fusion is the atomic process that powers the sun. Its potential sounds too good to be true: a clean, near-limitless energy source.

The big picture: AI is poised to help fusion in two ways, according to Andrew Holland, CEO of the Fusion Industry Association:

1. Machine learning is helping companies build virtual models that let them test and optimize designs without ever building anything. Partnering with corporate heavyweights Nvidia and Siemens, well-funded fusion startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems is employing this exact strategy.
2. Taming fusion plasmas — glowing clouds of charged particles that are inherently unstable and prone to disruptions. Disruptions happen in milliseconds — too fast for human operators. "Machines can move much faster than humans, but they are also able to see patterns in the data as well," Holland said. Google has been at the forefront of this research, alongside Commonwealth Fusion Systems.

🔎 What we're watching: Most fusion startups are aiming for commercial deployment by the early 2030s. And if AI solves fusion, it will help power the future of AI itself.

Picture this: By 2035, most new cars sold globally will offer some form of hands-off driving assistance, and millions will be driving around with no active driver at all, Axios transportation correspondent Joann Muller writes.

• 🚗 As many as 2.5 million fully driverless vehicles could be on the road globally by 2030 — climbing to more than 16 million by 2035, Telemetry's Sam Abuelsamid estimates.

🚖 State of play: Waymo already has robotaxis in 10 cities, with plans to be in 20 by the end of the year.

• A decade from now, Americans should have no shortage of options: Tesla and Amazon-owned Zoox are gearing up to launch robotaxis. Uber and Lyft are deploying partners' robotaxis on their networks.
• Driverless semitrucks are already starting to roll out in Texas and Arizona.

⚡️ The impact: Autonomous vehicles could expand mobility for seniors and people with disabilities, reduce crashes by taking human error out of driving, and reshape cities by reducing the need for parking.

• 📚 A perk: Freed from the act of driving, millions of passengers will be able to read books or email, watch movies, or even take a nap.

Deepfake detection tools will soon be embedded in internet usage, like passwords and antivirus software are today, Axios cybersecurity reporter Sam Sabin writes.

• Why it matters: Over the next 250 years of American democracy, the question won't just be who's speaking — but who can prove it.

🧑🏽‍💻 State of play: Policymakers, researchers and executives are racing to build systems that authenticate what's real in a world of AI slop.

• Some regulators, particularly in Europe, favor watermarks on AI-generated content.
• Others are pushing cryptographic authentication, or digital signatures embedded in code that verify who is on a video call or sending a message.

Wars of the future will see fewer humans on the front line, as smaller units are augmented with hordes of smart machinery that can handle dirty, dangerous assignments, Axios defense reporter Colin Demarest writes.

• ⚡️ The impact: The roles of commanders and their staffs will change. And losing a robot — even 40 — is far less consequential than losing a human life.

The big picture: The seeds of tomorrow's AI-driven wars are already planted in the drone-counter-drone battles unfolding in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Similar questions about how to defend against these systems are now surfacing in the tech-driven war with Iran.

Zoom in: Stateside defense contractors are riding the emerging-tech wave.

• In October, Lockheed Martin unveiled U-Hawk, a Black Hawk helicopter without a cockpit that's capable of deploying drones and ground robots, and Oshkosh Defense teased X-MAV, an autonomous vehicle that can sling Tomahawk missiles.

🔎 What we're watching: Although subbing robots for humans could preserve military lives, the prospect of autonomous warfare with little or no human oversight scares the heck out of many Americans.

• They worry that apocalyptic scenarios once confined to science fiction may be closer to reality.

One day, wearable health tech could save your life. Scientists are training AI algorithms on early disease detection and the identification of potentially fatal risks like sepsis and heart disease, Axios health care editor Adriel Bettelheim reports.

⚡️ State of play: AI underpins apps, wearables and Bluetooth-connected devices that help people manage chronic conditions like diabetes, recover from surgery, and treat depression and addiction.

👩🏻‍⚕️ For example: The FDA just greenlit an AI virtual care assistant for patients recovering from joint replacement surgery. It performs regular check-ins and can contact the physician if there are complications.

The impact: These kinds of technologies could help close critical gaps in care, like the nation's shortage of behavioral health professionals. And AI can eliminate clinicians' near-total reliance on patients to report how they feel and whether they're really following their doctor's instructions.

If you look even further into the crystal ball, humanoid robots could one day be living in your house — cooking dinner, folding laundry and putting Grandpa to bed, Joann writes.

• The Jetsons, set in 2062, had a robot maid. That's about the right timeline, Wall Street figures.