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Delve into insightful blog posts from CSET experts exploring the nexus of technology and policy. Navigate through in-depth analyses, expert op-eds, and thought-provoking discussions on inclusion and diversity within the realm of technology.

The European Union's Artificial Intelligence Act has officially come into force today after more than five years of legislative processes and negotiations. While marking a significant milestone, it also initiates a prolonged phase of implementation, refinement, and enforcement. This blog post outlines key aspects of the regulation, such as rules for general-purpose AI and governance structures, and provides insights into its timeline and future expectations.

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The U.S. AI Action Plan is built on three familiar pillars—accelerating innovation, expanding infrastructure, and maintaining technological leadership—but its real test depends on education and training. To that end, the Trump Administration has linked the plan to two executive orders issued in April 2025: Executive Order 14277, “Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth,” and Executive Order 14278, “Preparing Americans for High-Paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future.” Both orders came with tight deadlines and those windows have now closed. So where do things stand?

Exploring AI Methods in Biology Research

Steph Batalis, Catherine Aiken, and James Dunham
| April 21, 2025

Opposing narratives around AI for biotechnology raise the question: how are biotech researchers actually using AI in published research? CSET’s Steph Batalis, Catherine Aiken, and James Dunham explored this question by leveraging CSET’s merged academic corpus, enriched publication metadata, and research clusters.

Artificial intelligence is becoming more integrated into the sciences. One of the scientific fields experiencing this is computational biology, which uses computer modeling to understand biological mechanisms and systems. This blog post provides an understanding of important research trends in these subject areas, and how advancements in AI can improve the speed and efficiency of computational biology to improve human health and well-being.

Now that the first set of milestones has passed for the Biden administration’s October 2023 executive order on artificial intelligence, where do things stand for biotech? This blog post gives an overview of the most recent action items, with a recap of expert commentary from CSET’s June 2024 Webinar on the AIxBio Policy Landscape.

Riding the AI Wave: What’s Happening in K-12 Education?

Ali Crawford and Cherry Wu
| April 2, 2024

Over the past year, artificial intelligence has quickly become a focal point in K-12 education. This blog post describes new and existing K-12 AI education efforts so that U.S. policymakers and other decision-makers may better understand what’s happening in practice.

The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education is making changes to drastically simplify the criteria that determine its highly coveted R1 top-tier research classification. Last year, CSET Senior Fellow, Jaret Riddick, wrote about a new law from Congress, Section 223 of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, intended to leverage existing Carnegie classification criteria to increase defense research capacity for historically Black colleges and universities. Now, research is needed to understand how the changes proposed for 2025 classification criteria impact U.S. Department of Defense goals for eligible HBCU partners.

China’s Hybrid Economy: What to Do about BGI?

Anna Puglisi
| February 2, 2024

As the U.S. government considers banning genomics companies from China in the Biosecure Act, it opens a broader question of how the U.S. and other market economies should deal with China’s national champions. This blog post provides an overview of BGI and how China’s industrial policy impacts technology development.

CSET’s Must Read Research: A Primer

Tessa Baker
| December 18, 2023

This guide provides a run-down of CSET’s research since 2019 for first-time visitors and long-term fans alike. Quickly get up to speed on our “must-read” research and learn about how we organize our work.

The Global Distribution of STEM Graduates: Which Countries Lead the Way?

Brendan Oliss, Cole McFaul, and Jaret C. Riddick
| November 27, 2023

Discover how the global landscape of STEM graduates is shifting, potentially reshaping the future of innovation and education worldwide. This blog post analyzes recent education data from the countries with the most graduates in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. For each of the top eleven countries by number of STEM graduates, we present the total number of STEM graduates as well as STEM graduates as a percentage of total graduates in 2020.

Breaking Down the Biden AI EO: Screening DNA Synthesis and Biorisk

Steph Batalis and Vikram Venkatram
| November 16, 2023

The recent Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence will have major implications for biotechnology. The EO demonstrates that the White House considers biorisk a major concern for AI safety and security. In this blog post CSET’s bio experts explain the bio-relevant takeaways of the executive order, add some additional context, and note their remaining questions about its implementation.