Emerging Technology Industry Study

2019 Antonelli Award Winner: In an era of Great Power Competition, technology plays a significant role in developing both economic vitality and national security applications. Governments and militaries recognize that technology can deliver a qualitative advantage over an adversary and even change the character of warfare. As competitors look to challenge the United States (U.S.), their strategies seek leverage in artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous systems, and big data to negate the U.S.’s hardware advantage. In order to sustain its current position, the U.S. must aim to increase its capability to capitalize on emerging technologies like AI as well as strengthening the U.S. National Innovation System (NIS) to lead future technological development.

The Emerging Technology Industry Study examined many of the technologies associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution: AI, autonomous systems, quantum computing, etc. In addition, the seminar focused on what drives innovation, scientific discovery, and technology development at both the business-unit and national levels. Through research and numerous site visits, the seminar began to understand what roles the government and, more specifically, the Department of Defense (DoD) play in fostering this environment. While not a specific industry per se, in the field of Emerging Technology certain entities excel in innovation and transitioning technology development into business or military applications. How the U.S. can scale these centers of excellence at a national level will be critical to technology leadership moving forward.

This research endeavor resulted in the following five findings:

Finding #1: The U.S. risks losing its long-term advantage due to decreasing research and development investment and dwindling human resources, especially in science, technology, engineering, math, and computing (STEM-C) and attracting the world’s best talent.

• Recommendation: The U.S. Government (USG) must focus efforts to increase basic research, STEM-C education, and policies to attract and retain the best global talent.

Finding #2: The U.S. government has fallen behind commercial entities in its innovation capabilities and is struggling to integrate these technologies into the National Security Innovation Base (NSIB).

• Recommendation: The U.S. must leverage policies to build and integrate non-traditional defense companies into the NSIB through partnerships and policy reform.

Finding #3: The U.S. lacks a grand technology strategy, resulting in an incoherent and uncoordinated development path.

• Recommendation: The U.S. needs a National Technology Policy (NTP) to define the national strategy for achieving technology objectives.

Finding #4: The U.S. cannot afford to address these issues alone and risks losing its status internationally as a leader in both driving the technology standards and ethics debates.

• Recommendation: The U.S., with partners and allies, could produce an insurmountable challenge for competitors, requiring an update to security and data sharing policies.

Finding #5: The DoD faces significant challenges between prioritizing current readiness requirements against future capabilities and the need to develop new, disruptive technologies.

•  Recommendations:  DoD must inculcate emerging technology and AI competencies, throughout the total force, to raise its collective AI Intelligence Quotient while fostering an environment that welcomes advocates for change amongst senior levels of leadership.

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