As U.S. policymakers grapple with the need to control international technology flows, this annotated bibliography distills key lessons and surveys 50 years of scholarship, government documents, and commentary. The resources it presents are at the intersection of international economics and technology and span from the Cold War to the current challenges surrounding U.S.-China relations.

Conventional wisdom suggests that cutting-edge artificial intelligence is dependent on large volumes of data. An overemphasis on “big data” ignores the existence—and underestimates the potential—of several AI approaches that do not require massive labeled datasets. This issue brief is a primer on “small data” approaches to AI. It presents exploratory findings on the current and projected progress in scientific research across these approaches, which country leads, and the major sources of funding for this research.

Chinese and Russian government officials are keen to publicize their countries’ strategic partnership in emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence. This report evaluates the scope of cooperation between China and Russia as well as relative trends over time in two key metrics of AI development: research publications and investment. The findings expose gaps between aspirations and reality, bringing greater accuracy and nuance to current assessments of Sino-Russian tech cooperation.

Since 2011, China has dramatically grown its robotics sector as part of its mission to achieve technological leadership. The Chinese government has encouraged this growth through incentives and, in some cases, subsidies. Patents in robotics have surged, particularly at Chinese universities; by contrast, private companies comprise the bulk of robotics patent filers around the world. China has also seen a corresponding growth in robotics purchasing and active robotics stock. This data brief explores the trends in robotics patent families published from China as a measure of robotics advancement and finds that China is on track to emerge as a world leader in robotics.

As dual-use technologies transform the national security landscape, the U.S. Department of Defense has established a variety of offices and programs dedicated to bringing private sector innovation into the military. However, these efforts have largely failed to drive cutting-edge commercial technology into major military platforms and systems. This report examines the shortcomings of the DOD’s current approach to defense innovation and offers recommendations for a more effective strategy.

For the first time, a Chinese company—Huawei—is set to lead the global transition from one key national security infrastructure technology to the next. How did Washington, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, fail to protect U.S. firms in this strategic technology and allow a geopolitical competitor to take a leadership position in a national security relevant critical infrastructure such as telecommunications? This policy brief highlights the characteristics of 5G development that China leveraged, exploited, and supported to take the lead in this key technology. The Huawei case study is in some ways the canary in the coal mine for emerging technologies and an illustration of what can happen to U.S. competitiveness when China’s companies do not have to base decisions on market forces.

AI technologies will likely alter great power competitions in foundational ways, changing both how nations create power and their motives for wielding it against one another. This paper is a first step toward thinking more expansively about AI & national power and seeking pragmatic insights for long-term U.S. competition with authoritarian governments.

China’s National Cybersecurity Center (NCC) resides on a 40 km2 plot in Wuhan. As one indication of its significance, the Chinese Communist Party’s highest-ranking members have an oversight committee for the facility. Over the next decade, the NCC will provide the talent, innovation, and indigenization of cyber capabilities that China’s Ministry of State Security, Ministry of Public Security, and People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force hacking teams lack. Though still under construction, the NCC’s first class of graduates will cross the stage in June 2022.

Using CSET’s new Map of Science to examine clusters of research publications, this data brief presents a comparative analysis of U.S. and Chinese research publication outputs. The authors find that global competition outcomes differ depending on the level of granularity when comparing research publication data. In a granular view of global scientific research, the United States and China together dominate almost two-thirds of the research publication output, with the rest of the world leading in more than one-third of publication output. In a general view of global scientific research, only China and the United States appear as leaders in research output.

The global map of research has shifted dramatically over the last 20 years. Annual global investment in research and development has tripled, and the United States’ share of both global R&D funding and total research output is diminishing. The open research system, with its expanding rates of investment and interconnectedness, has delivered tremendous benefits to many nations but also created new challenges for research integrity and security.