White House Strategy Identifies Emerging Tech Crucial to National Security

A new White House strategy recently named 20 emerging technologies that are crucial to national security. In light of new and different forms of national security threats, the administration is encouraging agencies to begin investing in emerging technologies and incorporating them into their organizations.

With the rise of artificial intelligence, space technology, and a push for IT modernization in government, the U.S. has work to do in order to compete with other countries in the international realm. The White House, in October 2020, released the National Strategy for Critical and Emerging Technologies, which lays out a National Security Strategy (NSS) that “calls for the United States to lead in research, technology, invention, and innovation, referred to generally as science and technology (S&T), by prioritizing emerging technologies critical to economic growth and security.”

The report details how the United States will lead “in the highest priority technology areas to ensure its national security and economic prosperity.” The report outlines how the U.S. will act as a “technology peer,” meaning the country will “share its talents and capabilities with allies and partners, and mutually benefit.” Finally, the U.S. will use a technology risk management approach to decipher which technologies pose threats and which are actually useful for the country.

The strategy report continues, “Strategic competitors, such as the [People’s Republic of China] and Russia, have adopted deliberate whole-of-government efforts and are making large and strategic investments to take the lead. The United States will take meaningful action to reverse this trend.”

The strategy is constructed around two pillars of success: promoting the national security innovation base (NSIB) and protecting technological advantage. 

Achieving the first pillar “requires a sustained, long-term investment in all aspects of the NSIB, from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education; an advanced technical workforce; and early-stage R&D to innovation-friendly regulations; venture capital; collaboration between government, academia, and the private sector; and working with allies and partners,” according to the report.

For the second pillar, protecting technological advantage “requires domestic and international collaboration between companies, industries, universities, and government agencies.”

The strategy lists twenty different technologies that are critical to national security including advanced conventional weapons technologies, communication and networking technologies, data science and storage, and medical and public health technologies.