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.

See our original translation of a document that lays out the PRC government’s priorities for developing China’s civilian space infrastructure through 2025. It recommends that China reduce its reliance on foreign civilian satellite technology, but also advocates for continued use of international exchanges and technology transfer as ways to catch up to more technologically advanced countries in space infrastructure.

See our original translation of a speech that Xi delivered to a meeting of academics in 2020 that he convened to solicit input for China’s upcoming 14th Five-Year Plan.

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 resizing of images, which is typically a required part of preprocessing for computer vision systems, is vulnerable to attack. Images can be created such that the image is completely different at machine-vision scales than at other scales and the default settings for some common computer vision and machine learning systems are vulnerable.

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.

Establishing a new public-private institution to improve American research security

To better understand immigration paths of the AI workforce, CSET surveyed recent PhD graduates from top-ranking AI programs at U.S. universities. This data brief offers takeaways — namely, that AI PhDs find the United States an appealing destination for study and work, and those working in the country plan to stay.