As the United States seeks to maintain a competitive edge in artificial intelligence, the strength of its AI workforce will be of paramount importance. In order to understand the current state of the domestic AI workforce, Diana Gehlhaus and Santiago Mutis define the AI workforce and offer a preliminary assessment of its size, composition, and key characteristics. Among their findings: The domestic supply of AI talent consisted of an estimated 14 million workers (or about 9% of total U.S. employment) as of 2018.

U.S. research security requires trust and collaboration between those conducting R&D and the federal government. Most R&D takes place in the private sector, outside of government authority and control, and researchers are wary of federal government or law enforcement involvement in their work. Despite these challenges, as adversaries work to extract science, technology, data and know-how from the United States, the U.S. government is pursuing an ambitious research security initiative. In order to secure the 78 percent of U.S. R&D funded outside the government, authors Melissa Flagg and Zachary Arnold propose a new, public-private research security clearinghouse, with leadership from academia, business, philanthropy, and government and a presence in the most active R&D hubs across the United States.

Many factors influence where U.S. tech multinational corporations decide to conduct their global artificial intelligence research and development (R&D). Company AI labs are spread all over the world, especially in North America, Europe and Asia. But in contrast to AI labs, most company AI staff remain concentrated in the United States. Roxanne Heston and Remco Zwetsloot explain where these companies conduct AI R&D, why they select particular locations, and how they establish their presence there. The report is accompanied by a new open-source dataset of more than 60 AI R&D labs run by these companies worldwide.

China operates a number of party- and state-sponsored talent programs to recruit researchers -- Chinese citizens and non-citizens alike -- to bolster its strategic civilian and military goals. CSET has created a tracker to catalog publicly available information about these programs. This catalog is a work in progress; if you have further information on programs currently not included in it -- or if you spot an error -- please complete the form at http://bit.ly/ChineseTalent

Half of Silicon Valley’s startups have at least one foreign-born founder, and immigrants are twice as likely as native-born Americans to start new businesses. To understand how immigration shapes AI entrepreneurship in particular in the United States, Huang, Arnold and Zwetsloot analyze the 2019 AI 50, Forbes’s list of the “most promising” U.S.-based AI startups. They find that 66 percent of these startups had at least one immigrant founder. The authors write that policymakers should consider lifting some current immigration restrictions and creating new pathways for entrepreneurs.

CSET submitted the following comment to the Department of Homeland Security regarding a fixed time period of admission for nonimmigrant students, exchange visitors and representatives of foreign information media.

In recent years, concern has grown about the risks of Chinese nationals studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects at U.S. universities. This data brief estimates the number of Chinese students in the United States in detail, according to their fields of study and degree level. Among its findings: Chinese nationals comprise 16 percent of all graduate STEM students and 2 percent of undergraduate STEM students, lower proportions than were previously suggested in U.S. government reports.

The global AI industry is booming, with privately held firms pulling in nearly $40 billion in disclosed investment in 2019 alone. U.S. companies continue to attract the majority of that funding—64 percent of it in 2019—but that lead is not guaranteed. This report analyzes AI investment data from 2015 to 2019 to help better understand trends in the global AI landscape.

Future U.S. competitiveness in artificial intelligence will require a robust AI workforce. This data brief analyzes market demand for AI-related jobs to determine the skills necessary in the field. It concerns jobs considered both “core AI” and “AI-adjacent.”

Technical leadership in the semiconductor industry has been a cornerstone of U.S. military and economic power for decades, but continued competitiveness is not guaranteed. This issue brief exploring the composition of the workforce bolstering U.S. leadership in the semiconductor industry concludes that immigration restrictions are directly at odds with U.S. efforts to secure its supply chains.