China is embracing “embodied AI”—artificial intelligence integrated with physical agents, such as robots and drones—both for commercial reasons and as a path to artificial general intelligence (AGI). The trend reflects China’s signature approach to AI, which recognizes diverse paths to AI dominance vis-à-vis the large models favored in the United States. This report documents PRC support for AI embodiment, describes how it is understood by China’s research community, and maps out the related infrastructure.

This report assesses the types of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) platforms marketed in the United States and the finances of U.S.-headquartered UAV companies. It finds that most companies develop small UAVs, and only a handful develop more complex military systems. The report also finds that most drone manufacturers are privately held, venture-backed companies, many of which were founded after 2010, and investment activity is concentrated around firms that produce smaller UAVs.

Data Snapshots are informative descriptions and quick analyses that dig into CSET’s unique data resources. This data interactive maps each of the over 34,000 pieces of space debris the United States government has tracked since 1958, bringing Earth’s crowded orbits to life. It shows how seven decades of launches, collisions, and anti-satellite tests—and just a few catastrophic events by a handful of countries—have created most of today’s debris, potentially endangering the $1.8 trillion global space economy that depends on unfettered access to orbits.

In the second installation of our blog series analyzing 147 AI-related laws enacted by Congress between January 2020 and March 2025 from AGORA, we explore the governance strategies, risk-related concepts, and harms addressed in the legislation. In the first blog, we showed that the majority of these AI-related legislative documents were drawn from National Defense Authorization Acts and apply to national security contexts.

Recent U.S.-Gulf AI partnerships represent billions of dollars in strategic technology deals, but they raise critical questions about governance, oversight, and long-term influence. This analysis examines four major AI initiatives with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, discussing critical issues including fragmented oversight, technology diversion, and AI sovereignty. It proposes a framework to transform ad hoc dealmaking into principled, transparent, and rule-bound AI statecraft that advances U.S. interests, strengthens technology relationships with allies and partners, and establishes durable governance mechanisms for U.S. AI deployments abroad.

China’s efforts to develop AI-related military capabilities have garnered significant interest in the United States. Drawing on 2,857 AI-related defense contract award notices published between January 2023 and December 2024, this report finds that while China’s legacy defense sector players lead AI-related military procurement, an emerging set of nontraditional vendors and research institutions appears to play a consequential role as well.

Data Snapshots are informative descriptions and quick analyses that dig into CSET’s unique data resources. This three-part series introduces CSET’s patent clusters, which connect related patents through citations and text similarity.

In this two-part analysis, we use data from the Emerging Technology Observatory's AGORA to explore AI-related legislation that was enacted by Congress between January 2020 and March 2025. This first blog explores the origin and application domains of the AI-related legislation we reviewed. The second blog examines the governance strategies, risk-related concepts, and harms covered by this legislation.

This report examines how U.S. leadership in remote sensing, launch, and advanced space technologies has shaped the global space economy and what it will take to sustain that edge. Drawing on CSET’s prior research, the paper explores the role of public investment and technology, the risks of market consolidation, and policy steps to foster innovation, resilience, and national security in an increasingly contested and commercialized space domain.