Res. No. 722
A Resolution calling on the United States Congress to pass, and the President to sign, S.4825, also known as the “American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act”
By Council Member Hanif
Whereas, A sovereign wealth fund is a state-owned investment fund that collects a portion of a country’s revenues and utilizes it as an investment vehicle for public good, with Norway’s sovereign wealth fund funded by its oil revenues being a prominent example; and
Whereas, While the United States does not have a federal sovereign wealth fund, several states do, such as Alaska’s, which as recently as 2026 paid out dividend of $1,200 per recipient, and New Mexico’s, which is projected to reach $100 billion in assets by 2030; and
Whereas, Generative Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude have dramatically transformed how the public interacts with technology, and consequently the economy, with some reports forecasting global AI-related investment to exceed $1 trillion in 2026, with $581 billion solely in the U.S.; and
Whereas, AI company revenue and AI adoption are rising at historically fast rates, with Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence sharing that companies like OpenAI’s early revenue growth outpaced Uber’s and Moderna’s over similar time periods, and generative AI reached 53 percent adoption by the public in the three years since it was first introduced to the mass-market, quicker than the personal computer or the internet; and
Whereas, In developing and training these AI models, tech companies relied solely on human-generated content, even resorting to content piracy and copyright infringement, as news reports detailed incidents such as Meta’s employees torrenting books for model training purposes, lawsuits against OpenAI for using content for model training without permission, an NVIDIA employee blowing the whistle on scraping hundreds of thousands of hours of videos daily for AI training, and Anthropic reaching a record settlement of $1.5 billion for copyright infringement; and
Whereas, The expansion of the AI industry has also led to data center buildouts that have often occurred without proper oversight from the local communities where they are located, and including incidents like what occurred in Saline Township, Michigan, where an OpenAI data center proceeded with construction by suing the township after it had initially voted against their rezoning request; and
Whereas, Reports estimate that these data centers are consuming millions of gallons of fresh water each day and as much electricity as a million households, polluting the local communities’ water supply and driving up their electricity costs; and
Whereas, The proliferation of AI use has resulted in significant societal impacts, including the erosion of trust between teacher and student, overreliance on AI contributing to weakened cognitive abilities, reported incidents of AI chatbots enabling or even convincing users to harm themselves and others, and AI technology being a lead reason cited by companies announcing layoffs in 2026; and
Whereas, The CEOs of Anthropic, OpenAI, and xAI, have called for more government regulation; and
Whereas, According to international economic bodies like the IMF and OECD, as well as the CEO of investment BlackRock, the expansion of AI without proper guardrails threatens to exacerbate an already historic wealth gap as smaller companies, poorer countries, and younger workers miss out on access to digital infrastructure and industry training, while the flow of wealth generated by AI continues to concentrate in the hands of a wealthy few; and
Whereas, As the AI industry has been supported and sustained due to public data and continues to extract resources from the public, the public deserves to receive benefits for their role in propelling the industry; and
Whereas, S.4825, also known as the “American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act”, sponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders and referred to the Senate Committee on Finance, would impose a one-time 50 percent tax on the largest AI companies’ equity to establish a sovereign wealth fund that would invest that generated revenue on behalf of the public; and
Whereas, S.4825 would allow for the public to garner some financial benefit from the value that their data created; now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Council of the City of New York calls on the United States Congress to pass, and the President to sign, S.4825, also known as the “American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act”.
CCK
LS # 26039
10/28/2026