Wells Fargo and Pfizer executives warn that the United States could lose out to China if there is no innovation

Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf W Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla sounded the alarm on Wednesday about the United States potentially losing competitiveness to China, but said artificial intelligence could help America maintain its leadership.

Speaking at CNBC’s inaugural Invest in America Forum in Washington, D.C., the two executives said that although the United States still leads in many sectors, inconsistent policy and lack of investment are ceding to China. They said that artificial intelligence poses both risks and benefits to the American economy.

Scharf said AI will likely reduce the size of the workforce, but it will boost productivity.

“We’ll probably have fewer people for sure,” Scharf said. “When we look at the tools we’ve implemented just for the people who code, you see a 20%, 30%, 40% improvement in programmers. We haven’t reduced our headcount by 20%, 30%, or 40%. We’re actually doing more than we were able to do.”

Wells Fargo’s big-bank peers, such as JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, are already hiring fewer people due to advances in artificial intelligence.

Scharf also said the financial sector is preparing for major regulatory changes despite the ongoing political gridlock in Washington.

“We eventually expect significant changes in capital requirements and liquidity requirements,” he said. “We expect to see changes that will allow those in the industry, not just large banks and mid-sized banks, but smaller banks as well, to do more in these areas. [local] communities.”

Meanwhile, Bourla expressed concern about China’s growing strength in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, citing an increase in R&D spending, regulatory reforms and a national strategy focused on life sciences.

“they [China] “More patents have been filed this year than in the United States,” Bourla said. “This has never happened in history. Five years ago, the split was 90%-10%. … The gap is closing, but it will likely become [better than us] Unless we get our act together.”

Bourla urged the United States to shift focus from trying to slow China’s progress toward improving its productivity and innovation.

“We spend more time trying to think about how to slow down China than thinking about how to become better than them,” Bourla said. “We need regulatory changes here. We need stability. Tariffs and pricing have not been helpful.”

Pfizer recently agreed to a drug pricing deal with the Trump administration as part of a broader effort to remove long-standing doubts about pricing, Medicaid reimbursement and distribution. As part of the agreement, Pfizer received a three-year exemption from tariffs on selected drugs, provided there is additional investment in manufacturing in the United States.

““Tariffs and uncertainty about a radical correction of US pricing — with this deal, we remove uncertainty,” Bourla said on Wednesday.

He also described artificial intelligence as the next frontier of medicine, predicting that AI will revolutionize drug discovery by dramatically accelerating timelines for finding cures for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cancer.

“We have been trying for years to find cures,” Bourla said. “AI will make that happen.”