TSMC has a factory in the USA now, ASML too. OpenAI, Google, xAI and Nvidia are natively in the USA.
While no other country is even close to build AI on their own.
Is the USA going to "own" the world by becoming the keeper of AI? Or is there an alternative future that has a probability > 0?
So far, I haven't seen any indication that this is the case. And I'd say, hyped up speculations by people financially incentivized to hype AI should be taken with an entire mine full of salt.
Second, how could AI not be the deciding geopolitical factor of the future? You expect progress to stop and AI not to achieve and surpass human intelligence?
As far as I know, Waymo is still not even remotely able to operate in any kind of difficult environment, even though insane amounts of money have been poured into it. You are vastly overstating its capabilities.
Is it cool tech? Sure. Is it safely going to replace all drivers? Doubt, very much so.
Secondly, this only works if progress in AI does not stagnate. And, again, you have no grounds to actually make that claim. It's all built on the fanciful imagination that we're close to AGI. I disagree heavily and think, it's much further away than people profiting financially from the hype tend to claim.