Problem Statements

Technologies such as biotechnology, AI and additive manufacturing present the U.S. new opportunities to build on prior and existing efforts to revitalize and reinvent its manufacturing base. Given China’s manufacturing dominance today and efforts to move up the manufacturing value chain, could a technology offset help revitalize the U.S. industrial base and ensure the United States remains a competitive manufacturing player?

A "factory for anything" that combines capabilities such as AI modeling of novel materials, 3D/4D printing, AI-assisted generative design, novel alloys, and modeling and simulation could create a paradigm shift in manufacturing by expediting production timelines, broadening manufacturing horizons, and protecting against supply chain vulnerabilities. How can the U.S. harness the opportunities while mitigating the risks presented by a ‘factory for anything’?

It is possible for AI to design materials that humans have not conceived of yet. Digitizing physical and chemical properties of materials would be like a “human genome project” of the physical world. What would be an appropriate and realistic Manhattan Project-styled program in this space given current technology trajectories?

A distributed network of domestic biomanufacturing facilities around a country could allow the emerging manufacturing sector to scale and would mitigate the supply chain vulnerabilities of the centralized manufacturing model that companies naturally gravitate towards. How should the U.S. government / Department of Defense address this trend and the challenge and opportunities it poses to the U.S. traditional industrial base / defense industrial base.

U.S. leadership in AI will require that American and partner-based entities continue to drive the frontier in AI research. What national technology goals would keep the U.S. at the forefront of the sector?

Microlyzing AI—putting increasing AI capabilities on microelectronics like “systems on a chip”—could create a world where the cost of everyday products, like a $1,000 smartphone, is reduced by several orders of magnitude and is thus more accessible to a wider range of individuals. How would this technological revolution affect U.S. national security?

Today it is said that AI is a “black box.” As humans increasingly rely on AI systems, we need a way to explain and understand them. Advances in “attention modeling” can render the “thought process” of an AI application more clear but we still cannot “query” AI applications to “discuss” their thought processes. A breakthrough in this space would help establish trust in AI systems by enabling human users to understand why an AI system made a certain decision. How could the U.S. deploy such queryable AI systems to increase its international competitiveness?

Compute is the foundation of a digital society, where progress will be determined by a diverse set of competing compute paradigms and leaps in microelectronics. How can the U.S. maintain its multi-generational leadership in this sector in the face of China’s national emphasis and investments?

As the U.S. works to ensure it has domestic leading edge semiconductor foundries, the significant cost of such facilities (“fabs”) remains a limiting factor. Is it possible to reconceive the semiconductor fabrication facility such that it costs significantly less than the estimated tens of billions today?

A National Heterogenous, Modular Computing Platform could fuse together various computing paradigms and associated design tools, hardware, and software to propel the United States past Moore’s law. Such a project could take full advantage of incremental gains in emerging paradigms — such as quantum and neuromorphic computing — as they become available. How should the U.S. position itself to design and benefit from such a platform?

The U.S. currently lacks an ambitious national-level technical goal to achieve a specific quantum computing breakthrough with an aggressive, but feasible timeline. Defining a breakthrough will help motivate the various quantum computing research efforts underway to cooperate towards achieving this objective while stimulating more rapid progress. What should said national quantum computing goal be?

Solving the energy scarcity problem would revolutionize how we travel, build, and protect our environment. Alternative energy paradigms such as fusion appear to be on the cusp of a breakthrough, but leadership will accrue to the nation that can most rapidly and comprehensively mobilize its ecosystem.

Energy storage options today are largely built around lithium ion batteries, the supply and production of which is centered in China. How can the U.S. deleverage risk posed by this supply chain and/or create an energy storage hedge strategy?

Technology advances and social will are in a place where the U.S. might be able to mobilize resources towards a national interconnected grid that brings together the data and infrastructure to pave the way for the “new energy economy” and enable other technology areas. How can U.S. leaders in this space (politica, corporate, etc.) make such an integrated grid a reality?

Alternative battery chemistries such as molten salt or magnesium ion based batteries are rapidly maturing. Do these or other alternative battery technologies such as battery recycling offer an alternative to ensuring the U.S. has robust energy storage capabilities and supply chains that are less reliant on China?

Over the past decade, China has secured a leading position in the global wireless network infrastructure that supports a digital economy, posing both national security and economic risks to the United States and its allies. Which technology moves could match or offset China’s current 5G leadership?

Some of America’s competitors have explicit doctrines of informational warfare (e.g., Russia & the PRC). America’s open democratic system that values first Amendment rights remains uniquely vulnerable to these threats. While many existing efforts aim to detect and remove mis/disinformation, a concerted effort across government, the private sector, and philanthropy that improves citizenry and institutional resilience to mis/disinformation is desperately needed.

The rise in authoritarianism combined with a decoupling of the internet into regionally or nationally controlled internets presents a risk to the free flow of information that America’s open and free international order depends on. How might ubiquitous secure global connectivity/access (e.g., a global Starlink) help circumvent censorship in authoritarian regimes? What second order risks would the U.S. face by taking such an action?

Bioconvergence (biotech plus any other technology) could be the next industrial revolution but encompasses a vast landscape. China has similarly recognized the potential of biotechnology to be a transformative field for sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, defense, and energy, and is mobilizing national resources to pursue advantage. In what specific intersections should the U.S. not leave our leadership to chance?

To lead the world in biotechnology, our ability to engineer biological machines has enormous potential, but the current industry moves slowly and struggles to scale. Could a national network-enabled synthetic biology stack—akin to an application programming interface (API) for software—provide a standard platform that enables more companies and researchers to expedite and scale the production of new products like materials in the short term, and enable the engineering of more complex biological systems down the road?

What tools that if developed and given to researchers would accelerate biotechnology progress? How can the USG help support and spur the funding, creation, and/or deployment of these tools?