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The Open Frontier

The United States can lead at the technological frontier and still lose the most consequential part of the AI competition, if developers, firms, and governments at home and abroad build on another country’s models and infrastructure.

United States | China | Global

Robotics Commission Preliminary Report

The United States leads in many of the technologies that power intelligent machines, but it has not translated those strengths into comparable capacity to build, deploy, and sustain robotics across its manufacturing base.

United States | China

The Global AI Policy Landscape

Between January 2024 and September 2026, eight major global economies unveiled or updated ambitious artificial intelligence strategies to establish their leadership in the global AI marketplace.

Global | United States | China | Europe & Transatlantic | India | Middle East | Indo-Pacific

American AI Sentiment in 2026

Twelve months after Gallup and the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP) conducted their first survey on artificial intelligence (AI), Americans’ use of and familiarity with AI have grown, but their trust has not.

United States

Agentic AI and the Future of the U.S. Military

The character of war is changing — not incrementally, but fundamentally. SCSP convened more than two dozen former senior commanders, defense officials, frontier-AI technologists, and practitioners with direct experience of the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East to answer one question: Does the U.S. military need radical transformation, or significant reform?

United States | Russia & Eurasia | Israel | Middle East | Indo-Pacific

Sensing The Threat

The report argues that computer vision—especially automated change detection and persistent object monitoring—is technologically mature but remains underused across U.S. intelligence and defense because of institutional, cultural, acquisition, data, and governance barriers.

United States | China | Israel

U.S. – Israel Tech Alliance – A Strategic Technology Compact

SCSP and MIND Israel propose a civilian U.S.–Israel technology compact organized around six strategic domains, shared financing, implementation architecture, and benchmarks for allied technology cooperation.

United States | Israel | Middle East | Global

Charging Ahead: Southeast Asia

SCSP analyzes battery electric vehicle competition in Southeast Asia, finding rapid adoption led by Chinese firms, Vietnam’s VinFast, and manufacturing strategies in Thailand and Indonesia.

Southeast Asia | China | United States

AI Potential Impact on the Army Officer Corps

This report estimates how AI could affect Army officer work by mapping 131 specialties to O*NET occupations and surveying infantry and field artillery officers on peacetime and wartime tasks.

United States

U.S.–India AI and Emerging Technology Compact

This SCSP–ORF America report proposes a four-pillar U.S.–India compact for AI applications, infrastructure, talent, and policy to deepen bilateral cooperation and shape trusted global technology ecosystems.

United States | India | Indo-Pacific

China’s Space Cowboys Report

The report maps China’s top 25 space companies, using WireScreen data to examine ownership, subsidiary growth, executive backgrounds, and the sector’s integration of commercial capacity with state strategy.

China | United States | Global

Fusion Supply Chain Report

This report ranks key inputs for U.S. fusion supply chains, identifies vulnerable components and foreign dependencies, and recommends demand signals, manufacturing support, R&D, and critical materials management.

United States | China | Global | Europe & Transatlantic

Adaptation War

This report argues that the Ukraine war has become a global adaptation competition, with Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea sharing lessons that challenge U.S. and allied military learning.

United States | Europe & Transatlantic | Indo-Pacific | Russia & Eurasia

Smarter at the Edge

This report argues that edge computing can help the United States scale AI more efficiently by reducing energy burdens, complementing cloud data centers, and countering China’s coordinated push for efficient AI infrastructure.

United States | China | Global

Charging Ahead: How China is Driving Innovation to Dominate the Global Electric Vehicle Market

This report analyzes how Chinese battery electric vehicle firms, aided by state policy and domestic market growth, expanded globally and challenged U.S. competitiveness and security interests.

China | United States | Global

The Digital Case Officer

This report examines how artificial intelligence could transform HUMINT espionage, arguing that digital case officers can expand recruitment operations while requiring human control, legal safeguards, and adapted oversight.

United States | China | Global

Defense Paper Series 2025

This series of SCSP advisor papers urges the 2025 National Defense Strategy to prioritize cybersecurity, AI-enabled autonomy, acquisition reform, adaptation, shipbuilding, allied technology cooperation, and industrial modernization.

United States | Global

Offset-X Evolved

Offset-X Evolved argues that the United States needs a technology-centered offset strategy built on sensing, AI, autonomy, production capacity, allies, and defense institutional reform to preserve warfighting advantage.

United States | China | Global | Europe & Transatlantic

China’s AI Infrastructure Surge

This report examines China’s state-directed AI infrastructure buildout, linking data centers, model development, military-civil fusion, overseas engagement, and U.S. policy responses through Strider and SCSP analysis.

China | United States | Global

Applying AI to Strategic Warning

This joint SCSP-CETaS report evaluates current AI for geopolitical strategic warning, identifies data and decision-modeling limits, and proposes phased U.S.-UK efforts to improve intelligence forecasting and decision advantage.

Global | United States | China

Gaps Analysis: Welcome to the Arena

SCSP compares U.S. and Chinese positions across critical technologies, finding Chinese strength in production-heavy sectors and U.S. advantages in several innovation-led fields amid narrowing gaps and supply-chain vulnerabilities.

United States | China | Global

Defense Paper Series 2024

This 2024 advisor paper series examines future war, AI-enabled command and control, Joint Force modernization, China-focused deterrence, homeland resilience, mobilization, and operating environment trends through 2050.

United States | China | Global

AGI Will Arrive in Three Ways

The paper argues that AGI could emerge through scaling language models, new AI capabilities, and advances in the AI stack, with their convergence creating more general systems.

Global

Decoding China’s AI-Powered ‘Algorithmic Cognitive Warfare’

This article examines Chinese military and political scholarship on algorithmic cognitive warfare, arguing that AI-enabled influence operations depend on granular personal data and require stronger U.S. awareness and data protections.

China | United States

Data’s Role in Unlocking Scientific Potential

This paper argues that U.S. scientific leadership requires stronger data-sharing infrastructure, including inventories, public-private partnerships, standards, privacy tools, IP exploration, and synthetic data for AI-enabled discovery.

United States | China | Global

AI & The Future of Intelligence

This SCSP and ASPI report examines how generative AI could reshape all-source intelligence analysis through human-machine teaming, while urging cautious but urgent preparation by U.S. and Australian intelligence leaders.

United States

Fueling Innovation: Insights into Federal AI R&D Investment

This report reviews five years of federal non-defense AI R&D funding and argues that stagnant, uneven investment leaves key U.S. agencies and programs short of strategic competitiveness needs.

United States | Global

Action Plan for U.S. Leadership in Advanced Manufacturing

This action plan argues that U.S. leadership in advanced manufacturing requires moonshot programs, institutional reforms, industrial financing, trade coordination, cyber defenses, and workforce initiatives to rebuild capacity.

United States | China

Intelligence Innovation: Repositioning for Future Tech Competition

This report argues that the U.S. Intelligence Community must adapt to AI, open-source data, new partnership models, and strategic communications demands to sustain advantage in technology competition with China.

United States | China | Global

Action Plan for U.S. Leadership in Next-Generation Energy

This action plan proposes moonshots and enabling policies for U.S. leadership in next-generation energy, focusing on clean energy innovation, supply chains, workforce, commercialization, grid modernization, and competition with China.

United States | China | Global

Empowering the Edge: Uncrewed Systems and the Transformation of U.S. Warfighting Capacity

The report argues that uncrewed systems, combined with digitized command and control and meshed civil-military sensors, are reshaping warfighting and require urgent U.S. and allied reforms.

United States | China | Global

Funding For the Future: The Case for Federal R&D Spending

This paper argues that declining U.S. federal R&D investment, accelerating AI competition, and China’s spending push require larger, more agile funding for American innovation and security.

United States | Global

Leveraging Human–Machine Teaming

This RUSI–SCSP policy guide argues that US and UK militaries should integrate human–machine collaboration and teaming to offset adversary advantages and improve operations in denied environments.

United States | Global

3 Key Takeaways from 2023 & 6 Items to Watch in 2024

This year-in-review assesses how AI, wartime technology, and techno-economic competition shaped 2023, then identifies six 2024 issues spanning geopolitics, intelligence, warfare, innovation, and AI governance.

United States | China | Global | Russia & Eurasia

National Action Plan for U.S. Leadership in Advanced Compute & Microelectronics

This action plan argues for U.S. leadership in post-Moore’s Law compute through moonshots, stronger microelectronics R&D institutions, enabling technologies, secure allied supply chains, and talent policy.

United States | Global

Framework for Identifying Highly Consequential AI Use Cases

SCSP and Johns Hopkins APL present a flexible framework for regulators to identify highly consequential AI use cases by assessing sector-specific harms, benefits, magnitude, and reassessment needs.

United States | Global

Building the Generative Economy

This report argues that U.S. generative AI leadership depends on coordinated action across compute, data, and people to raise productivity, strengthen digital infrastructure, and sustain democratic competitiveness against China.

United States | China | Global

Governing of Generative AI

This report argues that U.S. generative AI governance must address election disinformation, consequential sectoral uses, foreign digital platforms, possible centralized oversight, and an international risk forum.

United States | Global

Innovation Power for the Generative AI Flywheel

This report argues that generative AI is accelerating an innovation flywheel across strategic technologies and urges U.S. government action on organization, moonshots, partnerships, and R&D funding.

United States | China | Global

Generative AI: The Future of Innovation Power

SCSP assesses how generative AI could reshape U.S. innovation power, national security, economic competitiveness, governance, foreign policy, defense adoption, intelligence operations, and strategic competition with China.

United States | China | Global

AI Governance Authority Options Memo

This memo evaluates where to locate a new AI governance authority and how to staff it, comparing standalone, embedded, EOP-based, fellow, contractor, FFRDC, and permanent-staff models.

United States

National Action Plan for U.S. Leadership in Advanced Networks

This action plan urges coordinated U.S., allied, and private-sector efforts to regain leadership in advanced networks through moonshots, secure supply chains, networked applications, exports, and standards strategy.

United States | China | Global

Offset-X Strategy

SCSP’s Offset-X Strategy argues that the United States needs a technology-centered defense strategy, near-term capabilities, and a redesigned Joint Force to deter or defeat China in the Indo-Pacific.

United States | China | Indo-Pacific

National Action Plan for U.S. Leadership in Biotechnology

The report presents a national security-focused biotechnology action plan urging U.S. leadership through moonshots, commercialization incentives, infrastructure, talent, supply-chain security, allied coordination, and governance guardrails.

United States | China | Global

National Security Addition to the NIST AI RMF Playbook

This SCSP addition to the NIST AI RMF Playbook provides national security considerations for mapping AI risks, including misuse, sensitive data exposure, adversarial exploitation, and third-party dependencies.

United States | Global

Vision for Competitiveness: Mid-Decade Opportunities for Strategic Victory

SCSP argues that U.S. strategic victory by 2030 requires mobilizing AI, emerging technologies, alliances, defense modernization, industrial capacity, and talent against China and an “Axis of Disruptors.”

United States | China | Global

Fusion Energy Action Plan

This action plan argues that the United States should treat fusion as a strategic commercial endeavor, pairing private-sector momentum with federal coordination, regulation, supply-chain planning, and talent development.

United States | China | Global

Platforms Interim Panel Report

This interim report argues that the United States needs a public-private technology strategy model to close or prevent gaps with China across critical sectors and secure positional advantages in innovation.

United States | China | Global

The Next Pandemic Could be Digital: Open Source Hardware and New Vectors of National Cybersecurity Risk

Rick Switzer argues that open source hardware could commoditize critical digital infrastructure, expand hardware-level cyber risks, and require U.S. policies on trusted sourcing, standards, disclosure, import controls, and R&D.

United States | China | Global

The Si² Fund: Building a Microelectronics Fund of Funds

This white paper proposes a $10 billion Si² Fund to use federal matching capital to attract private investment into U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and reduce political and market barriers to industrial policy.

United States | China | Global

Foreign Policy Interim Panel Report

This interim report frames digital freedom as a strategic technology priority, drawing lessons from Ukraine and proposing a playbook for governments, ICT companies, and civil society to counter digital repression.

Global | United States | China

Society Interim Panel Report

SCSP argues that the United States needs a national data action plan to improve data accessibility, protect privacy, and compete with China and other actors shaping global data governance.

United States | China

Economy Interim Panel Report

This interim report argues for a U.S. techno-industrial strategy to strengthen critical production, digital infrastructure, workforce capacity, financial leadership, and defenses against China’s distortionary technology and economic policy.

United States | China

Defense Interim Panel Report

This interim report argues that emerging technologies and China’s military modernization are eroding U.S. advantages and proposes an Offset-X strategy to restore military-technological superiority and Indo-Pacific deterrence.

United States | China | Indo-Pacific

Intelligence Interim Panel Report

This interim report argues that the U.S. Intelligence Community must adapt to data-driven rivalry by modernizing digital capabilities, open source intelligence, techno-economic analysis, and responses to foreign influence.

United States | China | Global

Geoeconomic Implications of a Fractured Global Economy

This Fathom Consulting report for SCSP analyzes how a fractured US-China economy could reshape trade blocs, expose US supply-chain risks, and create production opportunities requiring major fixed-capital investment.

Global | United States | China | Europe & Transatlantic

Mid-Decade Challenges to National Competitiveness

SCSP’s September 2022 report argues that U.S. competitiveness through 2030 depends on winning six technology-centered challenges spanning innovation, economics, AI governance, foreign policy, defense, and intelligence.

United States | China

Transatlantic Community Must Unite to Address AI Risks and Opportunities

The report argues that the United States, Europe, and democratic allies should align on pro-innovation AI governance to manage risks while preserving leadership against authoritarian technology competitors.

United States | Europe & Transatlantic

Welcome to the Machine

This report compares the U.S. and China to 2035, assessing how AI, robotics, and other emerging technologies could shape growth, labor, innovation, and techno-economic competition.

United States | China | Global