High-skilled immigrants have played a major role in keeping the U.S. at the forefront of technology, especially in artificial intelligence. According to an analysis by the Institute for Progress, more than half of the leading privately-held AI companies in the US have at least one immigrant founder, despite US President Donald Trump's calls for a "America first" strategy, strict border controls, and AI policies to combat fierce international competition, as reported by Axios.

According to an IFP analysis, immigrants started or co-founded 25 out of 42 businesses in the Forbes AI 2025 list of the top AI-related startups, or 60% of the total. Some well-known AI companies, like OpenAI and Anthropic, were shaped by immigrant entrepreneurs.

India leads, China follows close behind

Furthermore, the founders of these companies come from 25 countries. India leads the list with nine founders, followed by China with eight, and France with three. Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, Israel, Romania, and Chile all had two founders.

OpenAI's co-founders include Elon Musk, a South African; Ilya Sutskever, a Canadian; and Databricks, whose co-founders are from Iran, Romania, and China. The report demonstrates how foreign-born scientists and engineers helped shape the US technology economy, among other things.

Many of these founders came to the United States on student visas and went on to build businesses that are today driving AI developments across industries. Data from previous years reveal a consistent pattern: immigrants have been the key to the AI startup ecosystem, with the majority of top businesses having at least one immigrant founder.

Immigrants' contributions in the AI space extend beyond startups. Industry leaders such as Jensen Huang (NVIDIA) and Lisa Su (AMD) run key AI chip companies, while academics from numerous nations have made groundbreaking contributions to AI research.

Despite this, challenges like longer wait periods for green cards and increased competition from other nations may threaten the United States' ability to attract top international talent. The country needs to realise that it must make it easier for skilled immigrants to stay and innovate and find other ways to ‘make America great again’ in order to maintain its leadership in the AI space. 

 

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