We are in the midst of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven industrial revolution. From self-driving cars to medical diagnostics to next-generation defense and homeland security capabilities, AI is reshaping nearly every industry. 
 
As the U.S. races to maintain its global leadership in AI, much of the conversation revolves around natural language processing, the reshoring of the semiconductor supply chain and powering data centers. One critical component, however, remains largely overlooked: data storage — and the hard drives they contain that make scalable AI advancements possible. 

In the AI era, data is everything. Massive datasets fuel the systems that predict disease outbreaks, manage supply chains, detect fraud and empower our armed forces. According to Goldman Sachs, AI is poised to drive a 160% increase in data center demand by 2030. Without a scalable, resilient data storage sector, even the most advanced AI models will prove useless. The U.S. cannot afford to treat data storage as an afterthought. 

It is clear that data storage needed for scaling AI applications requires storage solutions equal to the vast explosion of data they generate. This is where hard drives excel. Hard drives, which store more than 90% of data in cloud data centers, are not only essential for managing data at scale but also play a critical role in maintaining the integrity of the data informing AI models, a cornerstone of Trustworthy AI. 

This reliance on robust data storage becomes especially clear in sectors where AI tools are being rapidly deployed. 

The defense and homeland security sectors rely on data-intensive AI systems to make real-time decisions in life and death situations. Satellite data and surveillance feeds require massive storage capacity, and our military’s integration of AI depends on reliable and secure high-capacity hard drives. An inadequate storage infrastructure doesn’t just slow things down — it can impact mission readiness and execution, particularly as we deploy new technologies like drones that are data-dependent used to both protect the homeland and advance security interests overseas. 

The private sector’s demand for data storage is also skyrocketing as AI transforms operations. Financial firms leverage AI to analyze markets and manage risk, media companies personalize streaming services, the agriculture industry optimizes crop yields through AI-driven insights, and companies manufacturing hard drives deploy AI at scale in factories to optimize and increase production by diagnosing and correcting defects in real-time. Across industries, the need for reliable storage has never been more urgent. 

The U.S. must act now to secure its leadership in data storage technology. The goal should be to avoid a repeat of the semiconductor crisis — where a lack of domestic production led to urgent, costly reshoring efforts in the form of the $52 billion Chips and Science Act.  

Just as chips power AI processing, hard drives provide the backbone for data storage, making them equally indispensable. By investing in and supporting the hard drive industry now, the U.S. can secure a stable foundation for AI growth and mitigate future supply chain vulnerabilities.   

The U.S. government has recently initiated steps to secure this foundation but more needs to be done. A recent White House memorandum acknowledges the importance of a robust AI ecosystem and the need to bolster the private sector’s competitive advantages, from access to chips to availability of capital and computational resources.   

A key area of advantage that must be maintained is the data storage industry, with the largest companies in the field driving innovation and advancing technology leadership in the U.S. and like-minded countries. As China continues to invest huge sums into data processing and storage technologies, it is imperative that the U.S. understands and supports this unique capability that is the backbone of the cloud and emerging technologies, including AI.    

The defense and homeland security sectors rely on data-intensive AI systems to make real-time decisions in life and death situations. Satellite data and surveillance feeds require massive storage capacity, and our military’s integration of AI depends on reliable and secure high-capacity hard drives. 

To maintain our edge, the U.S. government must consider hard drives and data storage technology as essential components in the broader critical technology ecosystem. Government incentives, future or existing, should be available for hard drive manufacturers to expand domestic capacity, strengthen supply chain resilience and encourage long-term storage and retention policies that contribute to AI trustworthiness.   

Government agencies should also establish regular dialogue with industry leaders to ensure clear, aligned strategies for fostering a robust data storage sector. Much like the public support provided for the semiconductor industry, hard drive manufacturing deserves recognition and prioritization as a strategic industry essential for driving cutting-edge innovation. 
 
As America charts its path in the AI-era, it must prioritize the infrastructure that underpins it. By recognizing and investing in this critical sector, the U.S. can build a resilient, scalable data storage backbone that advances national security, economic growth, and technological supremacy. 

President Biden on Monday vetoed a bill that would have added 66 federal district judgeships over a span of more than a decade, a once-bipartisan effort designed so that neither political party would have an advantage in molding the federal judiciary. 

Three presidential administrations, beginning with the incoming Trump administration, and six Congresses would have had the opportunity to appoint the new trial court judgeships, according to the legislation, which had support from organizations representing judges and attorneys.

Despite arguments from the organizations that additional judgeships would help with cases that have seen serious delays in resolution and ease concerns over access to justice, the White House said that Biden would veto the bill.

In a statement, Biden said he made his decision because the ‘hurried action’ by the House of Representatives left open questions about ‘life-tenured’ positions.

‘The House of Representative’s hurried action fails to resolve key questions in the legislation, especially regarding how the new judgeships are allocated, and neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate explored fully how the work of senior status judges and magistrate judges affects the need for new judgeships,’ Biden said.

‘The efficient and effective administration of justice requires that these questions about need and allocation be further studied and answered before we create permanent judgeships for life-tenured judges,’ Biden added.

He said the bill would also have created new judgeships in states where senators have not filled existing judicial vacancies and that those efforts ‘suggest that concerns about judicial economy and caseload are not the true motivating force behind passage of this bill now.

When Biden’s plan to veto the legislation surfaced earlier this month, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told ‘America’s Newsroom’ that the act is ‘the last spasm of a lame-duck.’

‘President Biden and his team don’t want to allow it to become law simply because a Republican administration would get to appoint some of the judges,’ Kennedy said. 

‘I wish they’d put the country first,’ the senator added.

The legislation was passed unanimously in August under the Democratic-controlled Senate, though the Republican-led House brought the measure to the floor only after Donald Trump was reelected president in November, creating an air of political gamesmanship.

Biden’s veto essentially shelves the legislation for the current Congress. 

Overturning Biden’s veto would require a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate, and the House vote fell well short of that margin.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

As President-elect Trump begins his second term in the White House, his days as a candidate are numbered.

But even though he’s term limited and his name will no longer be on the ballot, Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley says Trump will play a ‘significant’ role in supporting GOP candidates in the 2026 midterm elections.

‘President Trump is going to be a very significant part of this because at the end of the day, what we need to do is hold on to the House, hold on to the Senate so that we can finish his term and his agenda,’ Whatley emphasized in a recent interview with Fox News Digital at the RNC headquarters in the nation’s capital.

Republicans enjoyed major victories in last month’s elections, with Trump defeating Vice President Kamala Harris to win back the White House, the GOP flipping control of the Senate from the Democrats, and Republicans holding on to their razor-thin majority in the House.

Whatley argued that ‘as we go forward into this next election cycle, the fundamentals are going to remain the same.’

‘We need to make sure that we are building our state parties, that we’re building our ground game, we’re building our election integrity apparatus to be in place to make sure that when we get those candidates through those primaries in ‘26, that we’re going to be in a position to take them all the way to the finish line,’ he emphasized.

But the party in power traditionally suffers setbacks in the ensuing midterm elections. And Trump, who was a magnet for voter turnout in this year’s elections, won’t be on the ballot in 2026.

Whatley predicted, ‘Donald Trump will be very active on the campaign trail for Republicans. And his agenda is the agenda that we’re going to be running on.’

The Harris campaign and the Democratic National Committee outraised the Trump campaign and the RNC this past cycle, but Whatley is confident that with the party soon to control the White House, Republicans will be even more competitive in the campaign cash race in the midterms.

‘We’re pretty excited about where we are in terms of the fundraising that we did throughout the course of this cycle and what we’re going to do going forward,’ he said.

Whatley said his message to donors will be, ‘We were successful in putting Donald Trump into the White House, and we need to carry forward with his agenda by keeping these House majorities and Senate majorities.’

He also pushed back on the persistent questioning of the RNC and Trump campaign’s ground game efforts during the general election.

‘We focused very hard on low propensity voters. This was an entirely new system that we put in place over the course of this election cycle. It worked very, very well,’ he touted. 

And looking ahead, he said, ‘In a midterm election cycle, low propensity voters are going to, again, be very, very important for us. So, we’re going to continue to focus on building that type of a program.’

Whatley spotlighted that ‘we also focused on outreach to communities that the Republican Party has traditionally not reached out to – Black voters, Hispanic voters, Asian American voters. That’s why we were able to see such seismic shifts toward Donald Trump versus where those blocs had been in 2016 and 2020. We also saw seismic shifts among young voters and women voters because we were talking to every single American voter. Our ground game was very significant.’

Whatley was interviewed earlier this month, a week after Trump asked him to continue as RNC chair.

In March, as he clinched the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, Trump named Whatley to succeed Ronna McDaniel as RNC chair. Whatley, a longtime ally of the former president and a major supporter of Trump’s election integrity efforts, had served as RNC general counsel and chair of the North Carolina Republican Party.