While demonstrating technical proficiency, challenges and competitions can reveal China’s People's Liberation Army’s (PLA) key priorities, bottlenecks, and institutional dynamics within its defense innovation system, which would otherwise be difficult to observe. This blog summarizes public PLA announcements of challenges and competitions from January 2023 to December 2024 to understand the signals the PLA may be sending about technical priorities. Read More

CSET’s Vikram Venkatram shared his expert insight in an article published by Bloomberg News. The article examines China’s efforts to build massive domestic biobanks as access to Western biomedical databases becomes increasingly restricted amid growing geopolitical tensions. Read More

CSET’s Steph Batalis shared her expert insight in an article published by TIME. The article examines how leading AI companies are increasingly restricting access to their most capable models, such as GPT-Rosalind and Claude Mythos, due to growing concerns around dual-use risks in areas like cybersecurity and biological research, and the broader question of who should govern access to these systems. Read More

CSET’s Helen Toner shared her expert insight in an article published by the South China Morning Post. The article examines growing US concerns over Chinese AI companies using “distillation” techniques to replicate advanced American AI models at lower cost, and how potential US restrictions could reshape China’s AI industry. Read More

Who counts as part of the AI workforce? The answer shapes how researchers measure AI talent, how policymakers diagnose shortages, and how workforce strategies are designed. Yet many existing definitions capture very different kinds of work under the same label. This blog examines the strengths and weaknesses of prevailing approaches and introduces CSET’s new definition of AI development jobs as a narrower, policy-relevant alternative. Read More

CSET’s Catherine Aiken shared her expert insight in an article published by Nature. The article explores an open-access dataset called Cosmos 1.0, published in Scientific Data, which uses a Wikipedia-based AI model to identify the "Momentum 100," a data-driven list of rapidly emerging technologies such as reinforcement learning, blockchain, and 3D printing. Read More

Washington, D.C. (April 22, 2026) — This morning, Helen Toner, Interim Executive Director at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. The hearing, “Stealth Stealing: China’s Ongoing Theft of U.S. Innovation,” examined policy solutions to maintain U.S. technological leadership and strengthen U.S. intellectual property (IP) protections. Read More

Takeaways from CSET's Ongoing Analysis of the Chinese Military's AI Wish List Read More

CSET’s Matthias Oschinski and Mina Narayanan shared their expert analysis in an op-ed published by Newsweek. The article challenges the common framing of innovation versus regulation in AI policy, arguing that the more important question is what innovation is ultimately for and who benefits from it. Read More

CSET’s Lauren Kahn and Michael C. Horowitz of the University of Pennsylvania shared their expert analysis in an op-ed published by Asia Times. The article explores how Iran’s use of low-cost drones is reshaping modern warfare by combining scale and precision, a shift the authors describe as "precise mass." Read More