The United States is working to accelerate the integration of AI and blockchain for national security, transforming institutions, securing democracy, and establishing space-based data sovereignty.
The United States is intensifying its efforts in the field of artificial intelligence and blockchain technology. As technological prowess becomes an important measure of geopolitical dominance, the Trump administration has signaled that these two technologies are much more than just early-stage startups or hoped-for R&D projects. Blockchain and AI are already beginning to address major national, corporate, and even social issues from the boardroom to the ballot box and space. This naturally raised the question: If AI and blockchain technology come together, what’s next, and what could this mean for businesses, governments, and citizens?
In this article, Analytics and AI Leader Shubham Gupta, who contributed public comment on the RFI to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and led to the U.S. Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Plan, shares some thoughts on how AI and blockchain technology can change society — from how organizations operate, to how citizens vote, to infrastructure in space, and on a global scale in the digital economy and digital world. Gupta is also the author of Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, and Autonomous Innovation: Charting the Future of Intelligent Enterprises.
Artificial intelligence as a necessity for national security
The White House published a report, “Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan,” in July 2025, which included several federal policy recommendations that would accelerate AI innovation, AI infrastructure, and the AI workforce, and establish American leadership internationally. President Trump has acknowledged that “indisputable and undisputed global technological dominance” is a national security imperative for the United States.
On the blockchain front, earlier this year, President Trump signed an executive order that will “support the responsible growth and use of digital assets, blockchain technology, and related technologies across all sectors.” He then went on to create a strategic bitcoin reserve and stockpile of US digital assets, with a long-term vision for the US as the “crypto capital of the world.” In Washington, D.C., and in Silicon Valley, these initiatives are creating policy frameworks that position the United States on a path to a new technological battleground, while providing real opportunity at the intersection of artificial intelligence and blockchain. Gupta asserts that “these executive actions represent a deliberate strategy by the White House to remove regulatory barriers and accelerate America’s path toward technological dominance.”
Corporate Transformation: Get Real and Transform to Rise Above the Hype
While policies and guidelines are important, the real excitement around AI and blockchain technology lies within organizations where these and other technologies can converge to change how organizations and businesses operate. Together, AI and blockchain technology have real potential to redefine how an organization operates, secures its data, and creates value, but both technologies will need to demonstrate their ability to deliver truly transformative outcomes, rather than (or in addition to) their theoretical potential.
Enterprise IT systems and processes are overwhelmed with trying to manage and understand siled data that may not always be transparent. Blockchain’s distributed ledger is an immutable record of verified data, and helps AI analyze data patterns, automate decisions to predict outcomes, and create powerful new systems that are intelligent and trustworthy.
Supply chain management is one use case where the two technologies are expected to converge to drive efficiency and security. Artificial intelligence will be used to better forecast demand, while blockchain technology will enable a consistent supply from the manufacturer all the way to the consumer. Another area is healthcare. AI-enabled healthcare can leverage portable blockchain patient records for better AI risk prediction, more accurate diagnoses, and personalized care plans.
“In our sector, the biggest early win was traceability that we could actually trust,” said a logistics leader at a global manufacturer. But while early results can be encouraging, “data-sharing agreements are still far behind the technology,” says one hospital’s chief technology officer.
“The way these two technologies are coming together in the middle to transform the enterprise is just the beginning,” explains Gupta. “AI creates machine intelligence to process data and get insights from terabytes. Blockchain, on the other hand, creates an immutable, transparent, and verifiable data infrastructure. If you mix those two, you create truly trustworthy and independent systems.”
Analysts call the advanced system “smart trust networks,” which provide systems where all transactions and data can be verified, tracked, and secured with cryptography.
Beyond that: Sovereign data centers in space
Space technology may also be the next big frontier for America’s National Technology Strategy, as the Space Force component of the National Defense Strategy and 2025 Action Plan acknowledges. Orbital platforms are rapidly emerging as a potential area for data sovereignty and data security, whether due to domestic legal environments or geopolitical conflicts.
Space-based data centers have the potential to provide massive compute power, sovereign data storage, and resilient infrastructure. In orbit, solar power can provide AI workloads with essentially unlimited green energy, provide storage beyond any country’s jurisdiction, and infrastructure can leverage distributed systems that are likely to perform better in the harsh, remote environment of space.
Gupta is also a member of the IEEE Committee on Artificial Intelligence and Space Policy, so he had a unique perspective on the convergence of these technologies. He points out: “Space-based data centers are a unique convergence of AI and blockchain. Space-based solar energy, coupled with edge computing, can provide the massive computations required. Sovereign data storage is beyond the reach of any jurisdiction or legal environment of any government. Additionally, distributed interoperability on blockchain becomes easier with multiple orbital nodes, as AI can also automate systems, perform predictive maintenance, and secure communications.”
National defense and space agencies, private institutions, and the research community are likely to be affected by the developments. As launch costs decline and infrastructure develops and matures, the idea of orbiting data centers and the technologies they will need may quickly move from aspiration to aspiration.
Blockchain technology secures democracy, and artificial intelligence enables it
Another important potential convergence between AI and blockchain is the ballot box, the place where public trust in the system underpins democracy itself. Together, the two technologies are set to address one of democracy’s most difficult paradoxes: how to create elections that are truly fair and verifiable, yet ensure voter privacy.
Blockchain technology’s distributed ledger creates immutable, cryptographically secured votes on a public ledger that voters can verify, while artificial intelligence can detect fraud, and biometrics can help prevent duplicate ballots. But Gupta warns that “democratic legitimacy depends on public confidence in the election results.” “The beauty of the convergence of these two technologies is that they allow us to achieve transparency without revealing it. Votes can be verified by the individual voter as well as audited by election officials, while maintaining absolute confidentiality. It is trust that is earned through verifiability, not sought through obfuscation.”
While regulatory and infrastructural hurdles remain in the way of US adoption, Estonia’s long-term success with blockchain-secured elections and various pilot programs in US states suggest that this type of decentralized voting with AI oversight and support could be practical and desirable.
Crypto: the new global currency for autonomous AI agents
Digital finance and corporate adoption are also driving another sea change: native, programmable cryptocurrency is rapidly becoming the new normal for AI economic agents. Agents that are becoming more autonomous will also need payment paths that are fast, cheap, secure, and programmable. Old mints couldn’t do the trick, and stablecoins and native networks quickly became the de facto currency for machine-based commerce. Today, AI agents are using cryptocurrencies to settle payments, as agent payments protocols stabilize in stablecoins and major fintech companies begin deploying institutional stablecoins for their automated operations.
“Cryptocurrency adoption is fueled by the need for AI agents to access a fast and stable settlement layer,” Gupta points out. “Cryptocurrencies provide the speed, programmability, and transparent logic that an AI economy requires. For AI economic agents, cryptocurrency is no longer a substitute, but the very infrastructure that will enable their economic agency in an ever more digital world.”
Future proofing
The convergence of AI and blockchain is not without its challenges. Energy use is still significant, regulation is still evolving, and integration with older technologies and systems will require significant investment. Some technology and policy leaders question the near-term return on investment for some of these projects, while others argue that the costs of delay could be prohibitive as network effects and global standards take hold.
The momentum is clear. The White House’s AI Action Plan prioritizes exporting American technology standards and values, and new executive orders on cryptocurrencies create much-needed regulatory clarity for innovators, financial institutions, and end-consumers.
“The convergence of AI and blockchain is bringing us to an inflection point,” Gupta summarizes. “Companies and countries that do not start incorporating these technologies will soon find themselves out of the AI race, whether they like it or not. For forward-thinking organizations, this is not an option. It is an imperative.”
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