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National Security AI Entrepreneur Visa: Creating a New Pathway for Elite Dual-Use Technology Founders to Build in America

06.27.24 | 9 min read | Text by Joel Burke

NVIDIA, Anthropic, OpenAI, HuggingFace, and scores of other American startups helping cement America’s leadership in the race for artificial intelligence (AI) dominance all have one thing in common: they have at least one immigrant co-founder. In fact, in 2023, the National Foundation for American Policy released a policy analysis on the role of immigrants in the top American AI companies. According to their research, 65% of the companies appearing on the Forbes AI 50 list were founded or co-founded by at least one immigrant. Immigrant entrepreneurs are critical to America’s economic success, and as the private sector takes an increasing role in developing critical dual-use technologies like AI, they will be critical to America’s defense. 

According to a Brookings Foundation report, “China sees talent as central to its technological advancement; President Xi Jinping has repeatedly called talent ‘the first resource’ in China’s push for ‘independent innovation.’” It’s easy to understand why the CCP sees talent as critical in its efforts to dominate key dual-use technologies relevant to national and economic security – in today’s knowledge economy, those who can innovate faster win. A company like SpaceX, which almost single-handedly reinvigorated America’s spacefaring economy, would likely not exist without Elon Musk. The lists of companies and dual-use technologies critical to American national and economic security that are unlikely to have been created successfully without the right personalities behind them are innumerable. America needs these entrepreneurs more than ever as competition with China for global leadership in key fields like AI heats up.

Given increased competition for talent – from allies like the United Kingdom to competitors and adversaries like China – in critical technology areas like AI, Congress must act to support high-skilled entrepreneurs by creating a National Security Startup Visa specifically targeted at founders of AI firms whose technology is inherently dual-use and critical for America’s economic leadership and national security. To maximize the potential economic benefits of such a visa for all Americans, it can be narrowly tailored, focusing only on entrepreneurs who (1) have raised significant capital from accredited American investors and venture capitalists (VCs), (2) are willing to physically reside and start their business in an Opportunity Zone, and (3) will hire at least five Americans within the first year of operation. Immigration may be a complex issue, but there is no doubt that immigrant founders are the not-so-secret ingredient that have helped to fuel America’s rise as a tech superpower. Developing a narrowly scoped visa targeted at a critical technology segment means that America can ensure its continued dominance in AI, a technology that the CEO of Google has said may be as profound as fire or electricity. 

Challenge and Opportunity

While the United States has long been the preferred destination for immigrant entrepreneurs, America has never had more competition for global talent. Countries like Canada, Germany, and Estonia have created visas to attract entrepreneurs, and they appear to be working. After the introduction of a Canadian startup visa in 2013, the program increased the likelihood of previously U.S.-based immigrants creating a startup in Canada by 69%. These are immigrants who were already in America to study or work, and it should have been an obvious choice for them to stay and build their company in the United States. This means that the United States is losing out to hundreds of new companies and likely thousands of high-paying jobs that would come along with them. The fact that Canada, thanks to a streamlined immigration process for founders, was able to attract so many who were already in the United States should serve as a serious warning as to how the competition for talent is heating up.

Canada demonstrates how a start-up visa enhances immigrant entrepreneurship via National Bureau of Economic Research

Historically, the United States—and Silicon Valley in particular—was the undisputed leader for venture capital fundraising and the place to start a potential unicorn (a company valued at over $1 billion). However, America’s dominance has shrunk, and VC dollars along with unicorns are increasingly found across the world in tech hotspots from China to India to the United Kingdom, showing it is increasingly easy for entrepreneurs to build a successful startup elsewhere. This is critical, because when America was the only place to build a leading company, entrepreneurs had little choice but to wade through the labyrinth that is the American immigration system. Now, top talent have many choices, and the United States must compete to become not just the premier destination to build a company and raise capital but one that is accessible to startup founders who can’t afford high-priced immigration lawyers or to wait for years until their visa is granted.

While America’s largest geopolitical competitor may suffer from extreme difficulties in attracting foreign entrepreneurs to its shores, China has a massive population advantage. This can be seen directly in the STEM space and AI in particular. According to a CSIS report, “By 2025, Chinese universities are projected to produce more than 77,000 STEM PhD graduates per year, more than double the 2010 level of about 34,000 STEM PhD graduates. In comparison, the United States is projected to graduate only approximately 40,000 STEM PhD students in 2025, a figure that includes over 16,000 international students.” 

China has already outpaced the United States in the number of AI-related research articles published, and its domestic tech champions are global leaders in AI-enabled technology like facial recognition. Given the strong domestic showing in AI from Chinese researchers and entrepreneurs, with local AI startups raising billions of dollars in 2023 despite a slowdown in VC funding in China, China presents a strategic threat to America’s leadership in the AI space. America is on the cusp of losing its leadership in AI to China, but this policy creates clear opportunities to expeditiously regain lost ground by bringing in AI entrepreneurs who have already raised venture funding and are able to immediately hire American workers. 

However daunting the challenge China presents, America has long had a superpower: attracting the best and brightest to our shores to build innovative global businesses. And while many leading American AI startups have an immigrant co-founder, for every entrepreneur coming to the United States today, many more are turned away or dissuaded from applying. Take Erdal Arikan, a Turkish MIT and CalTech graduate who had difficulty staying in America to continue his research and returned to Turkey. According to Graham Allison and Eric Schmidt, “It turned out that Arikan’s insight was the breakthrough needed to leap from 4G telecommunications networks to much faster 5G mobile internet services. Four years later, China’s national telecommunications champion, Huawei, was using Arikan’s discovery to invent some of the first 5G technologies. Today, Huawei holds over two-thirds of the patents related to Arikan’s solution… Had the United States been able to retain Arikan—simply by allowing him to stay in the country instead of making his visa contingent on immediately finding a sponsor for his work—this history might well have been different.”

By creating a narrowly tailored AI National Security Entrepreneur Visa, the United States has a unique opportunity to recruit founders in a field deemed “critical and emerging” by the White House and help the nation maintain both its economic and national security competitiveness. And while many are concerned about the potential economic dislocation from AI, one way to mitigate such a risk is by helping entrepreneurship flourish in the United States, especially in underserved communities like those found in Opportunity Zones across every state. With hundreds or thousands of new businesses creating high-paid jobs in rural and underserved communities, Americans outside existing tech hubs of New York City and San Francisco could finally see real economic benefits of the tech boom. 

The economic potential for such a visa is tremendous. According to a 2024 report from the Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University, a startup visa could have a significant impact: “Data collected at the state level suggests that when the population’s share of immigrant college graduates increases by 1 percent, patents per capita increase by 9 to 18 percent” with the report going on to say that (depending on the number of entrepreneurs brought in) “Census and industrial data predict an increase of 500,000 to 1.6 million new jobs from young start-up visa companies in the United States after 10 years of operation.”

The time for an AI startup visa is now. It will help create American jobs and revitalize local economies, cement American global leadership, and ensure that we beat China in the AI race.

Plan of Action

Create a 10-year pilot AI Entrepreneur Visa program for a select group of countries to demonstrate the potential efficacy of the visa.

The AI National Security Entrepreneur Visa will be narrowly tailored to founders from friendly nations, who have already raised significant capital for their companies from accredited American investors and are willing to physically reside in an Opportunity Zone. This will minimize risks of visa overstays and espionage while maximizing the potential economic benefits by bringing companies that have capital ready to deploy to the United States. 

Visa Characteristics

• Initially available for nationals of Israel, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Canada, Ukraine, Armenia, Colombia, India, and Nigeria based on these country’s close ties to the U.S. and/or high rates of entrepreneurship.
• A two-year visa with an opportunity for a single three-year extension, plus a pathway to citizenship after the third year of residence in the United States.
  • Also applies to immediate family members only (children and spouse).
• Allows for physical residency within any designated Opportunity Zone for the visa holder and, if applicable, their spouse and children.
• Rapid issuance by default with a maximum timeline for issuing a visa of 30 days from the date of a completed application being submitted.
• Allows for multiple foreign cofounders of a company to submit an application for a visa.

Initial Visa Application Requirements

• Must demonstrate that the company has raised at least $500,000 from an accredited American venture investor or firm.
• Have a startup focused on developing an AI or AI-enabled solution.
• To be considered eligible, each applicant must own at least 20% of the startup.
• Applicants must have demonstrated AI-related technology skills including software engineering, AI research, applied AI research, or tech product management OR have a bachelor’s or graduate degree in software engineering, physics, or mathematics from an accredited college or university. 

Visa Extension Requirements

• The applicant must demonstrate that the visa holder’s company has created a minimum of five jobs employing American citizens within the first year of operation.
• The applicant must demonstrate that the company has grown revenues by at least 10% month over month on average during the period in which the visa was held OR have raised at least an additional $1.5 million from accredited American investors.
• The applicant must own 10% or more of the company at time of application for the visa extension.

Recommended Timeline

• Congress should mandate that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) begin accepting applications for the pilot program within 180 days of the bill’s passage. 
• Congress may consider adding a sunset provision 10 years after the program formally begins accepting applications in order to assess the program’s efficacy and determine whether it should be continued as is, scaled up, scaled down, or deprecated.

Miscellaneous Recommendations

• Consider creating a volunteer board of current and former American investors and entrepreneurs who can provide training and recommendations to the Department of Homeland Security/USCIS while guidelines and rules are being created for the new program.
  • Example: An immigration officer may have difficulty understanding how prestigious an accelerator program such as Y Combinator or StartX is, leading them to downgrade an applicant who actually has a high likelihood of building a competitive startup.
• Require an independent economic impact assessment to be conducted every three years to understand the current and projected future impact of the program over time.
• Make the program fee-based, so that applicant fees pay for USCIS’s operating costs and no additional costs are passed on to taxpayers.
  • Consider creating a cap of under $10,000 for total federal fees to make it accessible to early-stage startups.
• Ensure that it is possible for existing visa holders (student, work) to easily switch to the AI Entrepreneur Visa assuming they meet the relevant criteria.
• Consider allowing governors to opt in to the program, so that only states that would like to participate in the program do so.

Conclusion

America is in a race for global talent, especially when it comes to AI. The data shows that the majority of leading AI companies in America were created with at least one immigrant founder—but our immigration system makes it incredibly difficult for experts to come and build their companies in America, a serious strategic disadvantage compared to China, which produces dramatically more STEM graduates. By creating an AI National Security Entrepreneur Visa targeting high-skill founders who have already raised funds, Congress can quickly close the gap with China, bringing the best and brightest from around the world to America to build their companies. Not only will this help create jobs across the United States, it will make America the undisputed superpower in AI, allowing us to set standards and control the development of a technology whose impact may surpass those of all other innovations in recent decades.

This idea is part of our AI Legislation Policy Sprint. To see all of the policy ideas spanning innovation, education, healthcare, and trust, safety, and privacy, head to our sprint landing page.