A new competitive reality demands an expanded vision for U.S. innovation capacity and capability. The federal government cannot singlehandedly drive innovation in the United States in partnership, but it can co-create with the private sector a strategic vision and prioritize key initiatives. By doing so, the United States can achieve global leadership in the platform technologies of the next economy, such as transformational computing (e.g., AI and quantum), energy (e.g., advanced nuclear), and advanced biology (e.g., bioscience, biotechnology, and biomanufacturing).
There are three key Pillar 1 topics of competitiveness, under which we have identified six specific recommendations. The three topics include:
The rapid advancement of multiple game-changing technologies—and the unfolding Age of AI—will shape the future of U.S. economic and national security more than anything else. They are not only creating unprecedented opportunities for innovation, they also hold solutions to global grand challenges–such as supplying food to a world approaching 9 billion humans; electrifying the developed and developing world; securing, sharing, and preserving water resources; etc. They are propelling us to the precipice of a new industrial age that could disrupt numerous industries. AI is poised to transform dramatically the relationships between humans and machines, driving a massive leap in productivity. At the same time, the biggest challenger on the world stage to our way of life seeks to leverage this age of technology revolution to fuel and extend its own geopower.
In a new age being a defined and world order being reshaped by rapid technological advancement, winning the competitive challenge for the future, defending the current world order, and our global leadership rests on the strength of our ability to innovate with speed and at scale. To bring this to bear, the U.S. must develop a “all nation” science and technology strategy, with federal multi-year research and technology plans and roadmaps for coordination of long-term investment in infrastructure, technology, and talent to expand and strengthen the U.S. innovation ecosystem.
Invest in the innovation force multiplier—advanced computing. Advanced computing is central to the current and future U.S. competitive advantage in scientific discovery, technology, and innovation in a wide range of crucial societal, industrial, and environmental domains, as well as advancing dual-use technologies that undergird U.S. national security and military capabilities.
The strategy should focus on the technological frontiers of transformational computing and its applications in areas such as AI, cybersecurity, energy, biotech, healthcare, agriculture, cosmology, quantum, fusion, and climate; foster a skilled and diverse workforce in advanced computing research and applications; and development of data required to feed transformational computation.
Raise leader and policymaker understanding of the high potential, possible disruptions, and implications of the Age of AI. There is significant uncertainty about the future impact of AI on the economy, national security, various sectors, education, society, discovery, other technology advancements, and the workforce. There are also profound questions that policymakers will eventually face, and businesses, the workforce, and the citizenry will look to national policymakers and experts for answers and action.
The Commission should form a multidisciplinary team—scientists and engineers from different fields, AI/ML experts, futurists, macroeconomists, educators, sociologists, industry specialists, military strategists, foreign affairs experts, financial experts, and others—to develop several future scenarios on AI’s potential impacts, similar to the world energy system scenarios produced annually by the International Energy Agency or the Global Trends scenarios produced every four years by the National Intelligence Community’s Strategic Futures Group. Each scenario would be based on a variable set of assumptions about the speed of AI/ML advancement and level of computational power; speed and level of penetration in the economy, society, industry, workplace, and military; level of regulation; strategic competitor actions; etc. Using modeling and simulation, plausible scenarios for different timeframes would be developed showing possible impacts on the macro-economy and productivity, risk or advantage in military capabilities, changes to the labor market, workforce knowledge and skill needs, level and speed of discovery and technological advancement in different fields and in convergence of AI with other enabling technologies, societal impacts, etc. These scenarios would provide an analytic framework for leaders and policymakers in a range of domains as they work to develop strategies and policies for an uncertain future and help them see a range of possibilities.
The Commission would also convene a multidisciplinary group to explore and gather insights on some of the big questions posed by the rapid advancement of AI/ML such as:
Drive a new age of materials. The rapid scaling of AI has created unprecedented opportunities for developing new materials at unprecedented speed—new materials for applications ranging from microelectronics to human health, materials with novel properties, materials for the clean energy transition, substitutes for critical metals and minerals for which the United States now relies on strategic competitors for supplies, and biomaterials to avoid the mining and manufacturing of raw materials that could cause environmental degradation. By coupling AI models with advanced computing, millions of potential materials and new compositions can be explored in hours rather than years.
Among priorities to consider are substitutes for minerals used in advanced technologies for which the United States is reliant on China such as rare earths and graphite, and where the United States is reliant and China is the leading producing country, such as gallium, germanium, indium, yttrium, and others; sustainable structural materials and chemicals; and novel and other materials for defense.
Build a U.S. science and technology infrastructure for the 21st century. For decades, the focus has been on infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and broadband. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and its appropriations have made a huge investment in these elements of the U.S. infrastructure. Highways, rail, and other traditional infrastructure have been vital to agriculture, manufacturing, and the movement of goods across the economy. Today, we live in a technology-driven economy, and infrastructure for research, technology development, and innovation and access to it is just as important.
However, there are multibillion-dollar maintenance backlogs across multiple Federal R&D laboratories and facilities. Many U.S. scientists and engineers are working to conduct 21st century R&D in facilities designed in the 1950s that cannot support modern research and current laboratory practices in health and safety. Many do not have sufficient, clean, reliable, and secure electrical power necessary to support today’s instrumentation and high-performance computers. Some lack modern information technology capabilities needed to protect against data loss and cyberattacks, at a time when China is hacking these systems to obtain U.S. research results and technologies. Federal Departments and agencies have reported that the average age of their facilities exceeds their 40-50-year design life, with half rated to be in poor or critical condition. Failing infrastructure is causing interruptions in research activities. For example:
The Nation’s high-performance computing resources are over-subscribed. The U.S. Department of Energy’s INCITE program provides researchers from academia, government laboratories, and industry access to national high-performance computing facilities housing some of the world’s most advanced supercomputers. In 2024, demand for INCITE allocations at the Leadership Computing Facilities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory outpaced available resources by a factor of three, and 2023-2024 demand in the Advanced Scientific Computing Research Program’s Leadership Computing Challenge outpaced resources by a factor of five. Demand is expected to increase as the department’s Exascale Computing industry and interagency partners adopt exascale computing, as well as growing demand for AI resources.
The scaling of AI is driving skyrocketing demand for data centers. Academics are concerned that the high cost of working with AI—in terms of computing power and data sets—is squeezing them out of the field.
In addition, new types of science, technology, and innovation infrastructure are needed such as:
Repair, modernization, and upgrading of facilities, equipment, and instrumentation at Department of Energy national laboratories, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NASA, the National Institutes of Health, the Agricultural Research Service, and U.S. Department of Defense laboratories should be a high priority. States need to play a key role in developing and funding new infrastructure that supports their technology and innovation-based economic development initiatives.
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the fragility of global supply chains for critical goods, for example, personnel protective equipment and contrast media for medical imaging. The United States is dependent on metals and minerals sourced from foreign countries, including strategic competitors. Recently, the effects of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina shut down the operations of two extremely rare mines for super-pure quartz, a crucial material used in semiconductor production. As supply chains have become more complex and more global, they are becoming more vulnerable to a broader array of disruptions.
This could include monitoring for extreme weather, local military conflict, social unrest, the potential for company closures of supplier facilities, worker strikes, pandemics, or other actions that could disrupt a critical supply chain. With scenario modeling, the Department should explore the potential for disruptions and their duration, determine if plans of action are needed, and be prepared to identify alternative or substitute sources of supply. If the pilot matures and is successful, then catalyze industry consortia to extend the model to economic security.
