On October 17, 2023, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued an update to last year’s export controls on advanced computing, supercomputing and semiconductor manufacturing equipment. This blog post provides an overview of the updated advanced computing controls, analyzes more than 100 relevant chips, and discusses the licensing policies for the expanded chip restrictions and the increased country scope.

On October 30, 2023, the Biden administration released the Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). This blog contemplates a potential lack of balance in the policy discussions between the restrictions that come with governance and the promise of opportunity unleashed by innovation. Is it possible to apply AI standards, governance, safeguards and protections in a manner that stimulates innovation, competitiveness and global leadership for the United States in AI?

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.

There’s a lot to digest in the October 30 White House’s AI Executive Order. Our tracker is a useful starting point to identify key provisions and monitor the government’s progress against specific milestones, but grappling with the substance is an entirely different matter. This blog post, focusing on Section 4 of the EO (“Developing Guidelines, Standards, and Best Practices for AI Safety and Security”), is the first in a series that summarizes interesting provisions, shares some of our initial reactions, and highlights some of CSET’s research that may help the USG tackle the EO.

This trip report covers the major takeaways from the Future of Drones in Ukraine conference, co-hosted by the U.S. Defense Innovation Unit and Ukraine’s Brave1. It gives an overview of how drones are being deployed in Ukraine, the pace and scale of technological and operational innovation for inexpensive and commercially-available drones, and the future outlook for scaling in Ukraine but also with the U.S. Replicator initiative.

On October 30, 2023, the Biden administration released its long-awaited Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence. CSET has broken down the EO, focusing on specific government deliverables. Our EO Provision and Timeline tracker lists which agencies are responsible for actioning EO provisions and their deadlines.

The use of the word “trustworthy” in relation to AI has sparked debate among policymakers and experts alike. This blog post explores different understandings of trustworthy AI among international actors, as well as challenges in establishing an international trustworthy AI consensus.

The August 9 Executive Order aims to restrict certain U.S. investments in key technology areas. In a previous post, we proposed an end-user approach to crafting an AI investment prohibition. In this follow-on post, we rely on existing and hypothetical transactions to test scenarios where U.S. investments in China’s AI ecosystem would or would not be covered under the proposed program, and highlight outstanding challenges.

On September 8, 2023, Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) released their Bipartisan Framework on AI Legislation. The framework includes many ideas and recommendations that CSET research has highlighted over the past four years. This blog post highlights some of the most relevant reports and CSET’s perspective on the framework’s elements.

The Replicator effort by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is intended to overcome some of the military challenges posed by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). This blog post intends to both identify tradeoffs for the Department to consider as it charts the path for Replicator, and to provide a sense for the state of industry readiness to support.