Capitol Hill is being flooded with AI legislation. More than 300 AI laws were introduced at this Congress alone. Some are problematic, many are necessary, but most lead to nothing. However, there is one bill that should be skipped and sent to the President’s desk. The CREATE AI Act (Create Resources for Every American to Experiment with Artificial Intelligence Act), recently reintroduced by the Senate, represents a rare bipartisan opportunity for lawmakers to advance common-sense legislation and expand America’s ability to win the AI race.
The CREATE AI Act would permanently anchor the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) at the National Science Foundation. A pilot version of the NAIRR has been operational since early 2024, supporting more than 600 cutting-edge AI research projects in all 50 states. The NAIRR was launched under the Biden Administration, endorsed in the Trump Administration’s AI Action Plan, and now has broad support from Senators Todd Young (R-Ind.), Martin Heinrich (DN.M.), Mike Rounds (RS.D.), and Cory Booker (DN.J.). The companion House bill, introduced by Reps. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) and Don Beyer (D-Va.), continues to receive bipartisan support.
This kind of continuity across administrations and aisles is rare in Washington.
The NAIRR pilot removed cost barriers to conducting advanced AI research and served as the foundation for a shared technology ecosystem. Researchers, startups, nonprofits, and federal agencies gained access to supercomputing services that most institutions outside the private sector cannot afford. CREATE AI would permanently eliminate this remediable bottleneck and increase competition among our nation’s best researchers.
AI research capacity should not be left to industry alone. History shows that the most consequential technological advances arise from the intersection between academic laboratories, government-funded research, and private industry. This cross-industry competition is one of the most reliable drivers of economic growth. But the computing, curated data, and evaluation tools that drive advanced AI research today are almost exclusively housed in a handful of private companies. Reopening this access is in itself a competitive advantage.
CREATE AI is also important for international competition. China is building a large-scale state-led AI research stack through its National Integrated Computing Network. The UK has pledged up to £2 billion to fund its public AI research resource by 2030. The European Union has launched its InvestAI initiative to mobilize up to 200 billion euros for public-private partnerships in the field of AI infrastructure. If the United States wants to stay ahead, it cannot abandon its university researchers and public sector technologists, and small businesses waiting for compute time in commercial clouds that they can’t afford.
Hyperscalers will also benefit from CREATE AI. Collaborative public research can accelerate energy optimization and lead hardware developers to improvements in the training and inference capabilities that power their processors. From Cognizant’s perspective as an AI developer, our focus on enterprise-grade platforms, agents and models could be supported by world-class public research – building the trust needed for AI use in clinical workflows, fraud detection, supply chains and legacy government systems.
Passage of the CREATE AI Act means faster, safer, and smarter AI at scale. A shared public infrastructure is not a replacement for private innovation, but rather a complement to it, giving less well-resourced researchers the opportunity to fully contribute to our AI future. It also allows for progress over longer time horizons without the pressure of quarterly returns. Private sector models can be stress tested for effectiveness, and risks can be identified and addressed without profit motive determining the outcome.
The benefits extend far beyond the research community. CREATE AI can accelerate the next generation of transformative startups and expand AI adoption across companies of all sizes, and translate expanded opportunity into the creation of significant jobs throughout the United States. The thousands of AI-focused companies that lie between a handful of hyperscalers and the next big startup will benefit the most.
Members of both parties should view the CREATE AI Act as a rare opportunity to pass an AI bill that has already been discussed and refined, and tested in pilot form. There is no need for Congress to resolve contentious AI policy disputes. No winners will be selected. It does not burden the industry with new compliance measures. But it lays the foundation for American AI research and allows participation beyond a handful of companies. So the United States stays ahead.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com comments are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Assets.
https://fortune.com/2026/07/01/create-ai-act-bipartisan-deserves-to-pass-cognizant/
