Artificial Intelligence Nov. 25, 2025

The AI Fault Line: Driving Military Power and Shaping Global Order

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and quantum technologies are rapidly transforming the character of warfare and the foundations of international power. This paper contends that the United States (U.S.) faces an urgent imperative: preserve its military-technological edge not only through AI superiority but also through institutional transformation, innovation surges, and strengthened international partnerships. Strategic competitors—especially China—are aggressively investing in AI and quantum computing with the intent to outpace U.S. capabilities, reshape global norms, and erode American deterrence.

Artificial Intelligence (Formerly Emerging Technologies) May 31, 2024

Keep Moving Forward: The Race to Secure Competitive Advantage in Artificial Intelligence

The 2023-24 Eisenhower School Artificial Intelligence (AI) Industry Study seminar, "Johnny Five," explored the global AI race, focusing on the intense competition between the U.S. and China. Over 45 engagements with government, industry, and academia, the group identified key findings: 1. Innovation Clusters: Success in AI depends on building tech ecosystems, as seen in Silicon Valley and Taiwan. Collaborating with established hubs can help the U.S. and DoD maximize AI potential. 2. Cyber-Physical Systems: The world is transitioning to a cyber-physical age, requiring workforce development in STEM and fostering a "tinkering" mentality in the U.S. to drive innovation. 3. Data Optimization: AI’s effectiveness hinges on high-quality, secure data. Techniques like multimodal sensing and synthetic data are key, but using imperfect data raises ethical concerns. 4. U.S.-China Competition: The U.S. currently leads in areas like AI stack development, academic partnerships, computing, and data optimization, but must maintain this edge amid China's rapid progress. Additionally, the seminar explored the use of generative AI (GAI) tools. While GAI proved helpful for accelerating learning and resource assessments, it struggled with deep analysis and originality. The group recommends incorporating AI into military education, fostering a culture of responsible AI use, and creating ambassadors for AI throughout the national security sector.

Artificial Intelligence (formerly Emerging Technologies): May 30, 2023

Riding the Wave: Maximizing the Opportunities and Mitigating the Risks of Artificial Intelligence Disruption

The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) is disrupting the world. New capabilities demonstrate AI’s immense opportunities, but they also bring great risks: unsustainable power demand, worker displacement, and new ethical dilemmas that challenge global stability. As the People’s Republic of China pursues its goal to become the global AI superpower by 2030, the U.S. must act quickly and iteratively in collaboration with allies, partners, and industry to channel the disruption toward positive outcomes in an increasingly AI-driven world.

Artificial Intelligence (formerly Emerging Technologies): May 30, 2022

In AI We Trust, All Others We Model

The NSCAI explained in its 2021final report that AI is a unique human invention that is not a single event or technology. Rather, AI is like what Thomas Edison said of electricity, “It is a field of fields… it holds the secrets which will reorganize the life of the world.” Today, we experience AI daily. We interact directly with digital assistants like Alexa, Siri, and Watson or the IRS has our tax returns analyzed by AI to detect fraud. However, the examples today are minor advances (the tip of an iceberg) in comparison to the transformation that is coming.

Artificial Intelligence (Formerly Emerging Technology) May 31, 2019

Emerging Technology Industry Study

2019 Antonelli Award Winner: This paper provides an overview of the challenges and opportunities that emerging technology has for the United States (U.S.) National Security and for national competitive advantage. Emerging technology comes from innovation and research in universities, government research labs, and private industry. New technology has always been central to the Department of Defense (DoD), and, traditionally, much of the new technology was developed throughout the government, giving the DoD early and direct access to the most cutting-edge technological advances. What has changed recently is that emerging technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI), is now being developed and adopted first by private companies for the commercial market. Meanwhile, as the DoD struggles to identify, adopt, and field emerging technology to warfighters, China’s civil-military fusion policies provide its military direct access to new technology. This paper examines the implications of the U.S.’s and China’s contrasting approaches to innovation. To innovate while proactively protecting and preserving the existing system, the U.S. should work with allies and partners to invest in education and vocational training; promote policies to encourage technology clusters; promote business-friendly regulations; and use national security requirements to encourage innovation for defense applications. Simply put, it is imperative that the U.S. establishes and maintains an AI advantage in order to ensure favorable and sustainable conditions for technological innovation.