Data Snapshots are informative descriptions and quick analyses that dig into CSET’s unique data resources. This short series of Snapshots explores some of CSET’s original surveys. Check in every two weeks to see a Snapshot sharing what we learned from surveying AI researchers and professionals.

Read our original translation of the 2022 budget of the China Association of Science and Technology (CAST), a Communist Party-led professional association for Chinese scientists. CAST is funded by the Chinese government and promotes scientific ethics and science popularization. Among other projects, this year’s budget funds an effort to reform China’s Chinese- and English-language scientific journals.

Read our original translation of the 2022 budget of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, a state-run body of professional Chinese engineers that provides technology policy advice to the Chinese government and runs laboratories focused on applied technology research.

Funding and priorities for technology development today determine the terrain for digital battles tomorrow, and they provide the arsenals for both attackers and defenders. Unfortunately, researchers and strategists disagree on which technologies will ultimately be most beneficial and which cause more harm than good. This report provides three examples showing that, while the future of technology is impossible to predict with certainty, there is enough empirical data and mathematical theory to have these debates with more rigor.

CSET Research Fellow Emily Weinstein testified before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission at a hearing on "Challenges from Chinese Policy in 2022: Zero-COVID, Ukraine, and Pacific Diplomacy." Weinstein proposed the creation of a new export control regime.

In the current cyber-threat environment, a well-educated workforce is critical to U.S. national security. Today, however, nearly six hundred thousand cybersecurity positions remain unfilled across the public and private sectors. This report explores high school cybersecurity competitions as a potential avenue for increasing the domestic cyber talent pipeline. The authors examine the competitions, their reach, and their impact on students’ educational and professional development.

We aim to demonstrate the value of mathematical models for policy debates about technological progress in cybersecurity by considering phishing, vulnerability discovery, and the dynamics between patching and exploitation. We then adjust the inputs to those mathematical models to match some possible advances in their underlying technology.

Geopolitical tensions between the United States and China have sparked an ongoing dialogue in Washington about the phenomenon of “decoupling”—the use of public policy tools to separate the multifaceted economic ties that connect the two powers. This issue brief provides a historical lens on the efficacy of one specific aspect of this broader decoupling phenomenon: using export controls and related trade policies to prevent a rival from acquiring the equipment and know-how to catch up to the United States in cutting-edge, strategically important technologies.

Tracking the output of a country’s researchers can inform assessments of its innovativeness or assist in evaluating the impact of certain funding initiatives. However, measuring research output is not as straightforward as it may seem. Using a detailed analysis that includes Chinese-language research publications, this data brief reveals that China's lead in artificial intelligence research output is greater than many English-language sources suggest.

See our original translation of the 2022 budget of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which manages China’s diplomatic efforts and its embassies and consulates overseas.