- SCSP states that the report synthesizes work from October 2021 through August 2022, including four board meetings, 26 panel meetings with more than 225 experts, and more than 400 staff engagements.
- The report frames strategic competition between the United States and the People’s Republic of China as the defining feature of world politics and places emerging technologies at the center of that competition.
- The report argues that the United States came close to ceding strategic ground in microelectronics, 5G, and AI because policymaking was reactive and not organized around technology advantage.
- SCSP proposes a national technology strategy process that combines horizon scanning, action plans for strategic technologies, and coordinated public, private, and public-private resources.
- The report calls for a techno-industrial strategy focused on digital infrastructure, technology talent, critical inputs, financial leadership, and pushback against PRC techno-economic malpractice.
Mid-Decade Challenges to National Competitiveness sets an agenda for technology-centered U.S. national competitiveness amid strategic competition with China and rapid advances in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies. The report states that it synthesizes SCSP staff work, four board meetings, 26 panel meetings with more than 225 experts, and more than 400 engagements from October 2021 through August 2022. It argues that the United States has often reacted late to strategically important technologies, citing microelectronics, 5G, and AI, and that it must adapt to a changed innovation ecosystem by organizing public and private capabilities around national technology priorities. The report’s six-part agenda covers a public-private technology strategy process, a techno-industrial strategy, an American approach to AI governance, remade global leadership for technology competition, defense adaptation through an Offset-X strategy, and intelligence reform for data-driven competition. A final technology chapter highlights AI, compute, networks, biotechnology, energy generation and storage, and smart manufacturing as areas likely to shape future competitiveness. The report’s policy relevance lies in its call for federal action, alliance coordination, private-sector alignment, and institutional reform before the 2025-2030 window closes.
Published by the Special Competitive Studies Project. Co-publishers and external authors, where they exist, are credited in the byline above.