asad ramzanali

A Policy Agenda for Little Tech What should policymakers do to support Little Tech?

substack post: vanderbiltpolicyaccelerator.substack.com/p/a-policy-a...

full paper: cdn.vanderbilt.edu/vu-URL/wp-co...

People assume that gov’t inaction is the best policy strategy to support Little Tech. We pulled together conservative, progressives, LT companies, investors and found 7 discrete fed. & state policies to support Little Tech that could garner bipartisan and industry support.

Net Neutrality for AI Over the course of 2025, “vibe coding” went from Silicon Valley pet projects to a global phenomenon.

AI Neutrality borrows from net neutrality: when firms control essential infrastructure, they shouldn’t discriminate in favor of their own services. The goal isn’t to slow AI but to protect competition & innovation for end users. Substack post: vanderbiltpolicyaccelerator.substack.com/p/net-neutra...

Those conflicts aren’t hypothetical. Last year, Anthropic cut off API access to the AI coding agent Windsurf while its own Claude Code was gaining traction, showing how model providers can act as gatekeepers and pick winners and losers.

I’ve got a new report w/ Akhil Rajan recommending AI Neutrality. Anthropic, OpenAI, Google control ~90% of AI model API revenues. They also compete with their customers, creating unavoidable conflicts of interest and opportunities to abuse power. cdn.vanderbilt.edu/vu-URL/wp-co...

🚨 Watch Live at Noon. "Tech Policy in 2026: Congressional 2nd Session Preview"
📅 Wed. Jan. 28
⏰ 12 pm
📍 Rayburn House Office Building
📺 Video bit.ly/techpolicy2026
@asad09.bsky.social @lehogg.bsky.social @netchoice.bsky.social

Expert Predictions on What’s at Stake in AI Policy in 2026 | TechPolicy.Press Public Citizen's J.B. Branch and Ilana Beller invited predictions from multiple policy experts about what to expect on AI policy in the year ahead.

Starting 2026 with a new @techpolicypress.bsky.social piece, I spoke with leading voices in AI governance on what’s truly at stake this year: power, accountability, and democratic control.
www.techpolicy.press/expert-predi...

@hlntnr.bsky.social @asad09.bsky.social @adambillen.bsky.social

Substack post summarizing the idea: cdn.vanderbilt.edu/vu-URL/wp-co...

Digging up roads is 75–90% of the cost of deploying broadband, yet we keep excavating again & again. A smarter approach: install conduit when roads are open. @bendinovelli.bsky.social and my new paper explains why most Dig Once policies fall short & how to fix them cdn.vanderbilt.edu/vu-URL/wp-co...

America Needs Better AI Ambitions | TechPolicy.Press Arati Prabhakar and Asad Ramzanali say we are caught between fantastical claims and leaders deferring to industry without the imagination to drive progress.

@asad09.bsky.social and I call for better AI ambitions, beyond just business productivity. That will take forward government action and investment, not destruction. A future with new medicines for intractable diseases, better K-12 education, and improved weather forecasts is at stake.

Trump Is Taking 3 Steps Backward in the AI Race The administration needs to shift focus away from providing chips and datacenters to the world’s richest companies.

This is smart — clean data, research money and safety www.politico.com/news/magazin...

Trump Is Taking Three Steps Backward in the AI Race The administration needs to shift focus away from providing chips and datacenters to the world’s richest companies.

Trump’s latest order on AI—which he says is “inspired by the legacy of the Apollo Program” is a meh step forward — following three giant leaps backwards.

@asad09.bsky.social and I wrote about how far off it is from what it takes for America to win.

Trump Is Taking Three Steps Backward in the AI Race The administration needs to shift focus away from providing chips and datacenters to the world’s richest companies.

New essay in Politico today w/ @aratip.bsky.social on how Trump's “Genesis Mission” is one small step forward after giant leaps backward. The Trump AI doctrine really just boils down to boosting friendly tech companies. www.politico.com/news/magazin...

🚨Call for policy proposals

If AI adoption is not slowing down, policy governing safety and security practices needs to speed up. This is where you come in.

The people vs. the cloud Podcast Episode · Click Here · 10/28/2025 · 26m

The latest ClickHere podcast episode connects the grassroots protests outside data centers to the monopolistic businesses practices inside. I appreciated the opportunity to contribute to this thoughtful reporting. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

This is excellent.

We Need to Break Up Big AI Before It Breaks Us When the same few companies own the entire tech stack, they stop competing and start colluding.

A few trillion-dollar companies now comprise an AI oligopoly. Nvidia's announcement to invest $100B in OpenAI makes things worse. As I say in TIME, vertical integration is about money, control, and power. Policymakers should reject such combinations. time.com/7322418/chat...

AI’s $600 Billion Blind Spot A new report offers a legislative road map for creating a competitive and secure cloud computing market, without forcing policymakers to reinvent the wheel.

We're introducing a new section today called Big Ideas, exploring next-generation solutions for pressing policy problems. Today James Baratta looks at a new report on how to structure the cloud computing industry.
prospect.org/power/2025-0...

Thank you to @prospect.org for featuring my paper, How to Regulate the Cloud. Their focus on the market as “AI’s $600 Billion Blind Spot” brings attention to an ignored part of the AI policy debate. Grateful to see this important conversation gaining wider attention.

AI’s $600 Billion Blind Spot A new report offers a legislative road map for creating a competitive and secure cloud computing market, without forcing policymakers to reinvent the wheel.

The market for cloud computing is huge, but policymakers should pay attention to a new report that shows them how to address the market’s failures and the national-security risks they create. From James Baratta:

trib.al/tTK5pda

Here’s how we get the healthy, secure cloud market we need. vanderbiltpolicyaccelerator.substack.com/p/why-and-ho...

My paper is a blueprint for reform based on tried & tested regulations: structural separation, neutrality, interoperability, critical infrastructure designation, foreign ownership restrictions, & know-your-customer requirements.

Our reliance on an unregulated and oligopolistic cloud market that is central to the AI race w/ China is a glaring national security risk.

Opaque pricing and high switching costs, including “egress fees” just to move your own data out, make things worse. These failures stifle innovation and lock in dependence on a few players.

Amazon, Microsoft, Google control two-thirds of the market, making it a clear oligopoly. Each is a vertically integrated conglomerate. For AI companies, cloud providers are simultaneously suppliers, customers, competitors, and investors, creating massive conflicts of interest.

Cloud companies pulled in >$600B of revenue–multiples of AI companies. For context, AWS raked in $108B in 2024, while by comparison, OpenAI is hauling in $12B/yr. Even semiconductor companies don’t make as much as AWS.

The cloud computing industry is rife with market failures, and it poses risks to national security. In a new paper, I show how to fix the cloud before it fails us. cdn.vanderbilt.edu/vu-URL/wp-co...

The Large Gender Gap in Who Uses AI A recent study finds that AI usage tilts heavily toward men. Part of the reason: Women worried they might be penalized for using AI.

“Between May 2023 and November 2024, only 27.2% of total ChatGPT application downloads are estimated to have come from women. Similarly low shares of mobile downloads by women were seen on Anthropic’s Claude and Perplexity.”

No Handouts for Data Centers They don’t work for stadiums, and they won’t work for AI.

@ganeshsitaraman.bsky.social and I have a new piece in Commonplace, “No Handouts for Data Centers.”

Research shows that subsidizing sports stadium construction doesn't pay off. Now states are subsidizing data centers. That won't work either. www.commonplace.org/p/no-handout...