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Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage (2022)

Chapter: 2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization

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Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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2

Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization

The development and commercialization of technologies have changed radically in recent decades (Manyika et al., 2019). Much of the current U.S. approach to managing the risks of technology dissemination was based on the conditions following World War II, when the United States and its allies enjoyed overwhelming leadership in the development of new but discrete and largely well-defined technologies. Today, the research and development (R&D) process that creates new technologies depends increasingly on a level of collaborative, multisectoral, and international collaboration not seen in the past. Many modern technologies are multipurpose, have diffuse origins, and are highly interdependent on other technologies, with owners, users, and stakeholders from multiple countries. Instead of technology emerging from the military to find commercial applications, as in the past, commercial R&D has become the driver of much military technology.

In addition, technology development, production, and commercialization often rely heavily on systems of enabling technology, referred to in this report as “platforms” (see Box 2-1 for more detail). These platforms enable rapid, massive-scale, and lower-cost development by incorporating shareable technology elements into new technology applications. These platforms are often developed and operated by the private sector and have become an essential part of the technology ecosystem.

This chapter explores the changes that have occurred in technology development and commercialization, focusing on both the protection and promotion of technologies of strategic importance to U.S. economic and national security. It also uses case studies of four technologies—microelectronics (particularly semiconductors), artificial intelligence (AI), synthetic biology, and quantum computing—to illustrate these changes and to investigate steps that could be taken to bolster the nation’s continued technological leadership.

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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HOW TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT AND COMMERCIALIZATION HAVE CHANGED

In the past, technologies were generally optimized for a single, well-defined purpose and had limited dependence on other technologies or systems (Mowery and Rosenberg, 1998). The owners of the technologies were clearly delineated and were usually associated with a single country. Technologies could be characterized as intended for either civilian or military use, and it was possible to limit information flowing between these two spheres. Technologies deemed important for national security reasons typically were protected when they were vital to security interests, and after declassification were released for civilian use. Examples of such technologies include nuclear energy, electronic computing, satellite-based communications (including the Global Positioning System), and the early internet.

Under these circumstances, safeguarding the advantages provided by strategically important technologies generally involved protecting the technologies from disclosure, unwanted production or use, or piracy. Controls were exerted over information, commercialization of technologies, foreign control, trade, technology performance (regarding, e.g., safety), critical materials, fabrication, access, and use. Control often involved labeling technologies as “critical” for either national security or economic reasons, after which an array of protective mechanisms, such as classification or export controls, could be applied to protect them.

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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While aspects of these circumstances still apply, the world is a very different place today (Dobbs et al., 2015). The globalization of technology development and commercialization has coincided with an extraordinary expansion of international trade (Segal and Gerstel, 2019). As a result, many technologies are developed and produced with contributions from around the world. The semiconductor industry, as described later in this chapter, is an example. Also global are many aspects of biological research, including genomics and disease databases.

One consequence of this global innovation and production environment is the vital role of supply chains that transcend national borders (White House, 2021). Global supply chains have allowed companies to source new technologies from around the world, add needed capability and capacity, cut the costs of production, and pivot rapidly to new products. However, these advantages are accompanied by new risks of lost production and shortages when supply chains are disrupted, as occurred, for example, with personal protective equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic. The loss of production capacity also risks forfeiting process innovations or other forms of innovation that drive technological change (Fuchs, 2014). Offshoring can even be associated with a loss of human capital as innovators leave companies and industries that have moved production elsewhere (Yang et al., 2016). For military applications dependent on these technologies, new risks are associated with ensuring “trust” (e.g., against tampering or alteration) because of the limited availability of domestic manufacturing.

As discussed in detail in Chapter 3, the globalization of knowledge and a great increase in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) workforces in other countries have helped create a new environment in which traditional approaches to technology protection are often ineffective and can have substantial drawbacks. The performers of R&D come from the governmental, academic, private for-profit, and even nonprofit sectors, creating a complex combination of actors and nodes both within and across companies. As the rapid development of the COVID vaccines has shown, technologies are developed and move to application much more rapidly and in different ways than in the past. Because research, development, and manufacturing are globally distributed, control of technologies would be ineffective unless extended across multiple geographic and institutional domains. Furthermore, the applications of technologies often are emergent and difficult to foresee in advance. By the time it becomes apparent that a technology should be controlled, it has often spread so widely that controlling it is impossible.

The increasing numbers of well-trained STEM professionals around the world have also changed the development and commercialization of technologies (OECD, 2022). At one time, the United States was among a small number of countries producing highly educated individuals who drove innovation in emerging technologies. (Issues related to human resources are discussed in both of the next two chapters.) Today, however, other countries produce more STEM graduates than does the United States and are building their STEM workforces

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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more rapidly (Buchholz, 2020; McCarthy, 2017).1 This trend is due in part to individuals who were educated and trained in the United States and returned to their home countries. More recently, other countries have followed the highly successful U.S. model of the post–World War II era and have also greatly strengthened their primary, secondary, and tertiary STEM education systems.

As this globalization of STEM talent has progressed, global technology firms have become dependent on an international supply of scientists, engineers, and other types of technically skilled talent. Supply chains now provide not just raw materials but also intellectual content. Disengaging from these human resources supply chains may be counterproductive or even impossible.

In addition, the interdependence of technologies creates new vulnerabilities. In the case of information technologies, for example, their frequent dependence on access to massive amounts of high-quality data makes them susceptible to efforts to deny that access and distort or destroy valuable information necessary for innovation. The nature of information threats is different in today’s digitized and highly interconnected world because the ability to transmit and store information is much greater. Additionally, new technologies can intentionally fabricate or modify data in ways that make verification of authentic content more difficult and create distrust in governments and institutions. As misinformation has become more abundant and more easily accessed, many Americans have come to express distrust in science and technology in general, which can undercut efforts to convey scientific information and build a well-educated STEM workforce.

The Dependence of Military Technologies on the Commercial Sector

Technologies, particularly digital technologies (e.g., communications and networking, autonomy, vision and imaging, AI, and machine learning), are increasingly the bases on which military and national security and conflict depend (Sayler, 2022a). In contrast with the path from military to commercial applications of the past, military technologies have for decades become increasingly dependent on technology development conducted in the commercial sector. In many strategically important technology fields, such as AI, synthetic biology, and microelectronics, the pathway from basic research to application starts with private-sector investments aimed at addressing commercial markets. Decisions made in one domain—regarding technology protections, investments, the focus of work, ethical constraints, and so on—inevitably affect the other.

The case studies examined later in this chapter illustrate this point, but current work on autonomous vehicles provides an immediate and specific example (Lewis, 2021). R&D on autonomous vehicles in academia and the commercial sector has had a major influence on the development of autonomous vehicles for military purposes—initially for logistics vehicles and perhaps later

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1 Buchholz (2020) shows that India and China produce more STEM college graduates than the United States.

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
×

for combat vehicles. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has had a particular interest in supporting private-sector and academic work on autonomous vehicles through its Autonomous Land Vehicle and Grand Challenge programs. Commercial R&D on autonomous vehicles extends into other domains as well, including AI, robotics, advanced sensing, and digital connectivity. More broadly, this work is helping the United States and other countries build the kinds of innovative, high-technology, and forward-looking economies that will be critical determinants of future national security.

The dependence of the military on commercial technologies illustrates how economic success has become a critical component of national security. Economic strength provides social stability and the long-term ability to fund national defense. It heavily influences relationships with rivals and allies, which is a major component of national security. Consequently, strong relationships with U.S. allies will play an even more important role in technology development. And economic security bolsters the nation’s sense of itself as thriving, innovative, and successful.

Key Elements of the U.S. Innovation System

To benefit from new technologies, the United States needs to be a leader in technology innovation and in the incorporation of innovative technologies into new products, processes, and services (NAS et al., 2017). The U.S. innovation system comprises many institutions playing highly specialized roles. These institutions include not just technology companies but also government agencies, government laboratories, universities and other educational institutions, private nonprofit laboratories, research consortia, regulators, standards organizations, trade organizations, and capital markets, along with intellectual protection regimes and other legal frameworks. The network of these institutions is highly decentralized, with significant crossover of ideas and talent but with no policy or central authority responsible for managing the overall enterprise.

These institutions combine in ways that multiply their advantages, but the complexity of the overall system also poses challenges when the need to adapt to changes in technology development arises. The U.S. innovation ecosystem is one of the largest and most mature in the world, but many of its defining features were established when the United States enjoyed overwhelming advantages in technology development and could generally respond to any weakness in this complex and decentralized system by “outinnovating” its competition to regain first-mover advantages. Examples of past U.S. policies aimed at supporting this capacity include major expansions of research funding (e.g., the moon program, nuclear programs, energy research, health sciences research, nanotechnology research, and other programmatic initiatives); incentives to accelerate commercialization of government-funded work (e.g., the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 [Pub. Law No. 96-517] and the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act of 1980 [Pub. Law No. 96-480]); and efforts to “derisk” early-stage R&D (e.g., the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s [NIST’s] Advanced Technology

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
×

Program and its short-lived successor the Technology Innovation Program, grants under the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs, consortia programs).2

The economic and national security challenges facing the United States today from growing international competition in innovation, described in more detail in the next chapter, are the product of a more comprehensive set of circumstances. Addressing these challenges may be more difficult than simply establishing a funding program or policy to accelerate the decentralized U.S. system. Policy responses to the new environment will have to take into account the new challenges stemming from stiff international competition, including areas in which the United States may no longer be the technology leader but may need to “catch up.” The current U.S. technology system is deeply interdependent with the systems of other countries, and new risks are emerging in areas, such as foreign direct investment, data access policies, and standards-setting processes, that traditionally have not been subject to focused U.S. policy responses. Furthermore, while competitors have adopted many features of the U.S. approach to technology innovation—including attracting talent, funding research universities, embracing entrepreneurship, and forming risk-taking capital markets—they have not always adopted the U.S. position of government noninterference in the innovation process. The result is a distorted competitive environment that will have to be considered in any policy response from the United States.

The Importance of Platforms

As noted previously, a key characteristic of technology development and commercialization today is the essential role played by platforms. For the purposes of this report, the committee defines a technology platform as a set of integrated technologies, with an associated institutional and human infrastructure, that serves as an essential foundation for the design, development, production, or use of specific technology applications. These platforms are typically multiuse, multipurpose, and multinational systems with many potential applications, often at a global scale, and usually are developed by private-sector actors focused on commercial applications. They can be rapidly scaled and stacked or interconnected, multiplying their effects. They are complex and can change rapidly through innovation and use. Platforms differ from discrete technologies, which typically have a small number of critical components that it may be possible to protect from competitors.

In the field of information technology, a platform is typically a hardware and software environment for building and operating services and processes, such as databases, websites, analytics, or other applications (Sun et al., 2015). This definition can be broadened beyond information technology to include any system used to deliver a discrete service or perform an underlying process, including

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2 For more information on these programs, see NASEM (2020a, 2021, 2022) and NRC (2012).

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
×

design, development, production, or use. Some examples of platforms are app stores, overnight fulfillment and delivery services, the internet, and the “fabless” semiconductor paradigm, but many other types exist, including design, sensing, production, knowledge, and usage platforms. Many platforms are massive enterprises involving research, production, use, finance, governance, regulation, and trade. At a broader level, they are key components of science and technology ecosystems that accelerate scientific and technological advances and make those advances more widely accessible. They have a significant impact on the features, capabilities, vulnerabilities, fabrication, distribution, and use of technologies.

Powerful platforms enable entrepreneurs to build new products and services quickly, a capability that has created a different competitive dynamic from that of the past. Innovation is not confined within a single technology that one could attempt to protect; rather, it often occurs across an ecosystem of platforms that simultaneously enables new ideas and technologies to be rapidly explored, developed, and commercialized for national security and economic development. Many of these platforms, such as certain communications technologies, are developed in the civilian sector and then adopted for national security applications, illustrating the reversal of the traditional flow of technologies between defense and commercial applications discussed above (Wilson, 2016).

The use of platforms has accelerated the pace of technology development. Platforms such as genome editing, AI, and 3D printing amplify and are amplified by the technologies to which they contribute. In this respect, modern technology has become “autocatalytic,” in that the combination of technologies further accelerates the development of those technologies and their cumulative products (Cockburn et al., 2018).

Platforms have attributes that distinguish them from the technologies that countries aimed to protect in the past. These include concerns regarding the trustworthiness of the platform; interconnections, some of which may be hidden or require extreme effort to disentangle; increasing possibilities for unintended consequences as the platforms evolve; and a development speed that outpaces regulatory practices. Also, protecting a diffuse, multipurpose technology platform is much different from protecting a discrete technology with a defined purpose. It is almost impossible to protect a technology that is crucial to national or economic security by controlling only the final application without addressing the contributing features of the platform, because others can usually apply the platform to achieve the same endpoint. Thus, the widespread use of platforms creates new vulnerabilities and risks that affect the national interests of all countries sharing them. But governance of platforms is decentralized and often lags behind the issues raised by the technologies a platform has enabled.

Significant tension can exist among nation-states over control of a platform, as well as over technology upgrades that offer new functionality for shared platforms (Simcoe, 2012). International cooperation may be required in multiple areas, raising questions about the sharing of information and setting of standards. Even within the United States, oversight of the different components

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
×

of platforms, as well as applications, may fall under multiple agencies (including law enforcement), thereby requiring regulatory harmonization to an extent that has been difficult to achieve in the past.

In addition, the rapid rates of technological change made possible by platforms are poorly matched to legal and regulatory processes. Rapid changes can create sudden disruptions that are poorly understood by policy makers and the public. Small trends or minor developments can suddenly and unexpectedly explode in importance. For example, few people in the 1990s expected the sudden explosive growth of the internet, even though the basis of the internet had been developing since the 1960s. Rapid change also can mean that old and new technologies coexist for extended periods. An example is the simultaneous existence of modern computers and software along with older computers and software with markedly different features, capabilities, and vulnerabilities.

The four technology case studies presented below—microelectronics, AI, synthetic biology, and quantum computing—explore the various influences of platforms on technology development and commercialization.

CASE STUDY: MICROELECTRONICS3

Of the four technologies serving as case studies in this chapter, microelectronics has the longest and—thus far, at least—the most consequential history. Semiconductors are absolutely essential to modern industrial and national security activities, and they will continue to be vital to technology development and application. Moreover, their history reveals many lessons that apply more broadly to protecting technologies and platforms critical to national and economic security and accelerating the commercialization of advances stemming from U.S.funded R&D.

The origins of the transistor and integrated semiconductor chip amply demonstrate the importance of basic research and an ecosystem conducive to technology development. The invention of the transistor in 1947 at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey, derived from the principles of quantum mechanics and from inspired engineering, was a highlight of 20th-century U.S. innovation (Riordan and Hoddeson, 1997). The development of the integrated semiconductor chip in the 1950s addressed the more immediate need for miniaturization in the U.S. defense industry. The federal government funded up to half of R&D in the nascent semiconductor industry, with that amount tapering off in the 1960s and 1970s as the commercial market expanded. The U.S. government also directly funded the expansion of production capacity in the late 1950s and early 1960s. As prices dropped and capabilities increased, semiconductors became a powerful force multiplier for the U.S. military,

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3 This section is based in part on the presentations at a workshop on microelectronics held by the committee on June 10, 2021. An agenda for the workshop and speaker biographies are available at https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/06-10-2021/protecting-critical-technologies-for-nationalsecurity-in-an-era-of-openness-and-competition-meeting-4-workshop-on-microelectronics.

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
×

contributing to a strategic shift toward electronics-intensive military systems that supported U.S. superiority during the Cold War. By the 1980s, the U.S. semiconductor industry, centered in Silicon Valley south of San Francisco, was vertically integrated and included chip manufacturing.

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Japanese companies, with support from the Japanese government, matched what U.S. companies were spending on R&D in this area and greatly outspent U.S. companies on fabrication capacity. By the mid-1980s, Japan’s market share in the global semiconductor industry had surpassed that of U.S. companies. Technology transfer from the United States to Japan initially played an important role in this shift, but Japan also made its own public- and private-sector investments in semiconductor manufacturing technology, which advanced the emergence of Japanese equipment suppliers in the 1970s and 1980s.

Japan’s leadership was not to last. The rise of Japanese semiconductor manufacturing led to a policy response from the U.S. government in the 1980s, partly because semiconductors were seen as a national security concern. The Defense Department funded half of an industry-led consortium named SEMATECH (Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology), which partnered with U.S. firms to develop leading-edge manufacturing technology to accelerate the pace of innovation in the U.S. semiconductor industry. In addition, U.S. trade policy placed restrictions on Japan, which opened the door for the emergence of new manufacturers in other countries, especially South Korea and Taiwan. Since then, Japanese semiconductor manufacturing has been in decline, and semiconductor manufacturing is not a large-scale activity in Japan today.

Although the U.S. share of the global semiconductor industry began to grow again in the 1990s, the United States largely did not reenter the commodity semiconductor markets. Instead, it moved toward higher-value products, such as microprocessors, whose value lay more in the design than in the manufacturing technology for the physical device. Today, the U.S. industry includes very few integrated device manufacturers that both design and manufacture their own chips. Most are fabless companies that design custom semiconductors and then outsource the production of the devices to other companies. In shifting toward the R&D-intensive aspects of the business, U.S. semiconductor producers have opted for larger market shares in design tools and smaller shares in the more capital- and labor-intensive segments of the industry. In 2019, North America (primarily the United States) housed 11 percent of global semiconductor fabrication capacity, compared with 40 percent in 1990 (Platzer et al., 2020).

Current State

Today, the semiconductor industry is a global enterprise, with R&D, design, fabrication, assembly, testing, and packaging occurring in many different countries. As just one example, the most important technology for achieving smaller chip dimensions is a device known as a stepper, and a company based in the Netherlands named ASML is the source of the world’s leading-edge steppers

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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(Khan, 2019). Similarly, TSMC in Taiwan is now the world’s leading semiconductor manufacturer and provides chip manufacturing and other services for many other companies.

As a result of the globalization of the semiconductor industry, both commercial and military devices have become much more dependent on supply chains that cross national borders. The industry is very complex, a fusion of the public and private sectors with a heterogeneous, mature, and global innovation and manufacturing enterprise. Elements of the innovation ecosystem include R&D, design tools, fabrication facilities of various types, software, security, testing, workforce development, and economics. Semiconductor devices both depend on platforms for their design, manufacture, and use and constitute indispensable platforms used to create other technologies and platforms.

At the same time, the production of semiconductors is concentrated in just a few companies located in Taiwan and Korea. Taiwan, between TSMC, UMC, PSMC, and VIS, accounted for 63 percent of global semiconductor foundry revenue, and Korea, between Samsung and DBHiTek, accounted for 18 percent (Kuo, 2021). In 2020, TSMC alone produced more than half of the world’s semiconductors (Kuo, 2021). The market for lithography equipment is similarly concentrated, with the majority of production being performed by ASML, Veeco, and Nikon. In fact, ASML is the sole provider of extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment (Research and Markets, 2021).

The United States has a vital national interest in securing access to leading-edge chip manufacturing processes. Today, however, the United States produces only a small portion of the world’s most advanced semiconductors. Most production of these chips occurs in East Asia, and these supplies could be susceptible to disruption because of a trade dispute, natural disaster, global pandemic (as has been the case during COVID-19), or military conflict. For a technology and platform as indispensable as semiconductor chips in both the commercial and defense realms, the concentration of production facilities in any small geographic area or single country poses risks even if that country is an ally. Moreover, such dependence could potentially force the United States to enter into an alliance that might not be beneficial for other reasons or might force the United States to intervene in a conflict.

China’s strategy as an industrial competitor poses another risk to continued U.S. access to advanced semiconductors because it is aimed at creating a domestic, vertically integrated semiconductor industry that could challenge the global leadership position of firms in the United States and other countries (Capri, 2020). (Chapter 4 examines the competitive challenge posed by China in greater detail.) The Chinese government is seeking access to foreign capabilities to accelerate the development of the Chinese industry through subsidies, the acquisition of companies and technologies from other countries, and the development and recruitment of human talent. China could severely disrupt the industry through unfair subsidies, dumping, or intellectual property theft. A comparable process occurred with the U.S. photovoltaic industry, which was severely damaged by China’s aggressive entry into the market (Fialka, 2016).

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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Policy Considerations

In an internationally disaggregated production environment (one in which, for example design is separated from fabrication), there can be similar segregation in R&D on next-generation technologies. Thus, offshoring the manufacturing of chips could have a negative impact on the future capacity of the United States to develop next-generation microelectronics fabrication capabilities. Current policies include incentives for the potential “reshoring” of domestic chip manufacturing facilities to the United States through the use of government subsidies.4 But if these domestic production facilities were limited in use and not part of the global chip manufacturing enterprise, such a policy could increase the cost of maintaining leading-edge technology. The rapid scaling and growth of capabilities in advanced microelectronics are continuing and not slowing. Therefore, any response to these issues must include an element of “moving faster” and restoring U.S. dominance not only in chip design but also in fabrication and integration.

Ensuring security in chip design and manufacturing in a global design and production environment is another challenge. The direct incorporation of advanced-design microelectronics into so many applications makes this a clear case in which many critical technology areas are directly impacted by the integrity, trustworthiness, and function of a device. Compounding the security challenge is that microelectronics are developed and produced through highly specialized, global, and shared design and production systems (that is, through the technology platforms discussed above). The existence of these platforms has allowed various aspects of the process to segment (e.g., into fabless design companies and global foundries), yielding a highly efficient and capable global capacity to design and produce technology products using microelectronics. Not utilizing this global production platform carries significant costs in either capability or financial terms, although an independent domestic supply may help with potential supply chain disruptions.

This global production system poses clear risks, including interference by governments, diversion or sabotage, piracy, industrial espionage, and counterfeiting. Moreover, the concentrations of semiconductor manufacturing and production of lithography tools increases the susceptibility of downstream firms to interruptions in the global supply chain. Technologies or widely adopted and internationally accepted standards, regulations, or norms that could be used to ensure the trustworthiness of fabricated devices do not exist. Alternative approaches include applying trustworthiness frameworks—either through technology or through an international conformance program—to enhance the integrity of electronics.

In the past, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has supported domestic manufacturers to guarantee access to reliable microelectronics important to the national defense. However, this program produces only a small fraction of

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4 U.S. Congress, CHIPS Act of 2022, H.R. 4346, Sections 101–107, 117th Congress.

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
×

the semiconductors DoD needs, and trusted manufacturers in the United States are hard-pressed to remain at the technological frontier in this arena, which means the chips they produce may be at a technological disadvantage compared with the chips from other sources. Furthermore, malicious software or hardware could be introduced into microelectronics at other times, not just during design or manufacturing. In the past, DoD has certified some domestic manufacturers with trusted supplier status for national defense applications. This program uses a perimeter defense approach and relies on facility and personnel security clearances. Although the trusted supplier model is useful for some defense applications, it does not provide DoD with the most advanced, diverse set of microelectronics as required for national security applications. As a result, DoD has moved toward a policy of assurance based on zero-trust principles instantiated in security standards established in Section 224 of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. Recent developments include the Rapid Assured Microelectronics Program, which is aimed at demonstrating measurable security with multiple leading commercial semiconductor companies across the entire life cycle based on commercial best practices, and which is informing the emerging DoD standards. Additionally, programs such as DARPA’s Electronics Resurgence Initiative and provisions within the CHIPS Act of 2022 include investments that are intended to accelerate innovation in next-generation microelectronics, as well as to overcome security threats across the entire hardware life cycle.5

Policy makers have been debating whether a larger segment of the microelectronics supply chain should reside in the United States to address concerns surrounding manufacturing concentration and the supply chain problems experienced in recent years. In addition to ensuring domestic sources of supply for microelectronics, the concomitant development of human expertise and generation of implicit knowledge could be vital to U.S. economic and national security interests. In modern technology development, including the other case studies examined in this chapter, feedback from the production and use of a technology to R&D activities can be a major source of innovation and advancement. The benefits derived from production and use could be areas in which reliance on international supply chains diminishes capabilities that are foundational to future successes.

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5 These security programs include the Automatic Implementation of Secure Silicon (AISS) program, which “aims to ease the burden of developing secure chips. AISS seeks to create a novel, automated chip design flow that will allow security mechanisms to scale consistently with the goals of a chip design. The target design flow will provide a means of rapidly evaluating architectural alternatives that best address the required design and security metrics, as well as varying cost models to optimize the economics versus security trade-off. The target system on chip (SoC) will be automatically generated, integrated, and optimized, and will consist of two partitions—an application specific processor partition and a security partition implementing the on-chip security features. By bringing greater automation to the chip design process, the burden of security inclusion can be profoundly decreased.” See https://eri-summit.darpa.mil/eri-programs (accessed August 30, 2022).

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
×

The most important factors in maintaining a U.S. semiconductor industry are financial and governmental as well as technological. Creating a better business environment for the industry entails regulations, taxes, investments, and education. People conducting R&D need a strong institutional infrastructure. A level playing field internationally can help foster domestic production.

Managing security risks requires a comprehensive risk management approach, especially as computers become increasingly interconnected. The federal government also has a convening role. Its dialogue with people who are driving an industry, even if the government is a small part of the market, can help in determining what is needed to ensure leadership.

Success in the microelectronics industry, as in other technology industries, depends on access to technical talent. In the United States, access to that talent requires investments in domestic education and research that encourage American students to study STEM subjects. Jobs in the U.S. semiconductor industry are good ones; the U.S. industry directly employed more than 180,000 workers in 2019 at an average annual wage of $166,400—twice the overall average of U.S. manufacturing jobs (Platzer et al., 2020). Maintaining a leading-edge capability in microelectronics also requires retaining and strengthening immigration pathways. Today, two-thirds of graduate students in electrical engineering and computer science globally are from countries other than the United States (NCSES, 2022b). And in 2011, 87 percent of semiconductor patents awarded to top U.S. universities had at least one foreign-born inventor (New American Economy, 2012).

CASE STUDY: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE6

AI denotes machines that perform tasks normally associated with human intelligence, such as driving, spoken-language comprehension, or medical diagnosis. AI is an emerging and highly disruptive technology area with an essentially unlimited range of potential applications. To cite just a few examples, it has been applied to speech recognition, wearable health sensors, cybersecurity, scientific discovery, logistics, games such as chess and Go, medical diagnosis, autonomous vehicles, multiobjective optimization, computer tutoring, robotics, and the modeling of AI systems themselves. AI involves the interaction of technological systems with people, which requires integrating it with fields as diverse as social sciences and psychology. As AI is integrated into current and future technology, it could come to shape every aspect of economic, social, and informational life.

AI also has unlimited military applications (Horowitz et al., 2018). Among these are object recognition and imagery for base defense; precision

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6 This section is based in part on the presentations at a workshop on artificial intelligence held by the committee on July 12, 2021. An agenda for the workshop and speaker biographies are available at https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/07-12-2021/protecting-critical-technologies-for-nationalsecurity-in-an-era-of-openness-and-competition-meeting-5-workshop-on-artificial-intelligence.

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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munitions; autonomous systems (including weapons); surveillance; integrated battle-space situational awareness and execution planning; and exosuits that could give soldiers an extra set of “eyes” to monitor their environment and warn them of threats, as well as enhanced physical capabilities in threat situations. Because of these potential military applications, along with its commercial potential, the development and commercialization of AI have garnered the attention of nations around the world. China, for instance, released in 2017 a plan for capturing the global lead in AI development by 2030 (China State Council, 2017).

AI exemplifies the shift today from the historical paradigm of military technology transitioning into the commercial realm, with new commercially developed AI advances often being introduced into the defense regime.7 This pathway complicates attempts to restrict the technology, since commercial development typically spans countries even if a particular project is occurring within a single company. Furthermore, commercial products that embody AI typically are publicly available, which allows at least part of the technology to spread widely.

AI may be considered a platform technology, or it may be part of a standalone technology system. Traditionally, a toolbox of generic AI tools was used to solve specific problems, so that the development of AI components and application domains were distinct and separate. Today, a far more integrated approach to joint R&D is leading to a new discipline that fuses AI and its applications. For this reason, leadership in AI typically requires leadership in the technologies that rely on AI capabilities. In this way, AI has become an accelerant, a catalyst, and a force multiplier across many tasks.

In 2019 the U.S. AI community developed a roadmap for research in the field for the next 20 years (Gil et al., 2019). As this roadmap points out, AI holds the potential to “1) boost health and quality of life, 2) provide lifelong education and training, 3) reinvent business innovation and competitiveness, 4) accelerate scientific discovery and technical innovation, 5) expand evidence-driven social opportunity and policy, and 6) transform national defense and security” (Gil et al., 2019, p. 2). However, realizing such benefits will require fundamental research advances in such key areas as integrated intelligence of modular AI capabilities and skills, sophisticated interaction between humans and machines, and self-aware learning that yields robust and trustworthy AI capabilities. To achieve these advances, the roadmap recommends the creation of a national AI infrastructure marked by open AI platforms and resources, community-driven AI challenges, national AI research centers, and mission-driven AI laboratories.

Current State

The complexity and open-endedness of systems based on AI introduce many risks and vulnerabilities. The performance and capabilities of individual AI

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7 The committee notes that some military AI applications, especially those related to target acquisition and attack decision making, do not have commercial-sector parallels.

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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components have progressed much more rapidly than the ability to integrate them into trustworthy AI systems, and the performance of complex systems built on AI platforms often cannot be characterized a priori. As a result, it is difficult to anticipate failure modes tied to rare inputs. In addition, AI systems can yield biased results because of the data used to train them and system characteristics that are difficult to detect. This lack of interpretability for AI systems leads to significant issues around trust and privacy, pointing to the need for an ethics and legal framework for use of AI for the greater good. Additionally, authoritarian governments around the world may be able to leverage these tools to curtail freedom and democracy. AI-enabled technologies also may exacerbate the spread of misinformation through the transmission of false images and information that are indistinguishable from their true counterparts.8

AI has clear national defense–related applications, including autonomous vehicles, facial recognition technology, and maintenance software (GAO, 2022). Moreover, technological advances have led to a proliferation of low-cost AI applications that could lead to increases in the “deployment of AI-empowered drones, cyberattacks, and online information operations” (Kreps, 2021).

This is a complicated backdrop. It is difficult to determine whether AI will remain a set of (many) discrete technology applications or develop into a platform, as discussed earlier, that enables efficient, productive, and capable systems of other technologies. While AI can be integrated with other technologies and platforms to yield new technological capabilities, the combination of deep learning and massive datasets could transform AI into a general-purpose platform that points to new domains of research or areas of technological potential. AI may thus come to serve more broadly as a general method of invention, with profound effects on invention’s nature and pace (Cockburn et al., 2018).

AI is already having a profound impact on many aspects of commerce and national security, and is being pursued by scientists, engineers, and innovators globally. Given the breadth of AI and the investments being made privately and by nations around the world, the United States is not in a position to lock this technology away. Attempting to protect AI broadly is unlikely to be possible, given its already ubiquitous nature; runs the significant risk of cutting the United States off from the global focus on and progress already being made in AI itself; and could be detrimental to U.S. interests should AI progress to a general platform.

Policy Considerations

AI-based technologies have the potential to engender profound disruptions in the behavior and capability of a large number of technology markets, military and national security systems, economic conditions, labor

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8 Deep fakes and false images use AI to manipulate pictures or videos inexpensively (Langguth et al., 2021).

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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markets, and systems that support civil societies and social interactions. AI systems may also enhance adversarial capabilities, including crime, counterfeiting, military technology, surveillance systems, and other applications with potentially deleterious consequences.

The potential disruptions resulting from AI raise questions for regulators, policy makers, researchers, and American society about how to oversee its development and use. Protection from AI-related threats may impact technology development, integration into applications, protections on the use of critical data, connections of AI-based systems to physical or logical control systems (such as financial or weapons systems), and user access controls. Both governments and big tech will need to be involved in the oversight of AI-based systems, and they will need to trust each other to move toward a shared understanding of goals and threats and the importance of technology regulation.

Historically, a key factor in the rapid progress of AI research has been the sharing and wide dissemination of fundamental research. As AI is adapted to an increasing number and range of applications, however, the need for restrictions is becoming a more prominent consideration. In 2017, for example, the Trump administration followed the recommendation of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to block a Chinese firm from acquiring a U.S. company that manufactures chips used in AI applications (Hoadley and Sayler, 2020). In the DoD, AI is increasingly being applied to classified information, requiring restrictions on both analyses and the information generated (National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, 2021). Even when AI serves as a platform upon which a new application or technology is based, that application or technology may need protection despite an inability to protect the underlying platform.

Interesting developments have occurred involving collaboration between the defense and commercial worlds. Part of the technology—the fundamental or generic AI component—can be developed in an open and unrestricted fashion while some of the more competition-sensitive elements are protected. Thus, mechanisms are needed that allow sharing of data while preserving sensitive or proprietary aspects of the data. Both government and the private sector have responsibilities for establishing such mechanisms. Yet predicting which elements should be protected can be difficult. As the range of commercial and strategic AI applications continues to expand, defining what should be restricted and what should remain open will have a profound impact on competitiveness, on security, and on scientific problems.

Barriers to entry in successful AI technology research vary by application, and with entry depending on other capabilities, such as access to massive sets of high-quality data and high-performance computing platforms. Given that AI is an emerging technology area, the leader in the field will have the greatest opportunities to define the response to various risks. Therefore, moving faster than competitors and adversaries will provide advantages in shaping the technology’s development, deployment, and use. A leadership position will also

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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provide more opportunity to shape international systems of governance, including restrictions or limitations on the development or use of the technology.

Other countries are building the large computational and data infrastructures needed to develop AI. They also are supporting broader ecosystems that have the effect of attracting and retaining talent, which will be particularly critical in achieving and maintaining competitiveness in this field. Strong institutions, extensive collaboration, and open research environments are among the factors that will determine success. In contrast, restrictive approaches to technology development have great potential to shift the innovation leadership in AI to countries that are willing to sidestep restrictions to stay ahead. Thus it is important to limit the use of restrictive environments to particular sensitive applications and developments, not to AI more generally.

Because many fundamental scientific breakthroughs in AI are needed, leadership in basic research in this area will be critical. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada are among the global leaders in AI research today, while China is investing large sums of money to attain that status. China’s applied technology using AI is already very high-quality, as exemplified by its use of speech and facial recognition in state security operations. The Chinese, who operate by a different set of rules from those of researchers elsewhere, are also moving more quickly than is the United States toward the integration of algorithms and data in ways that provide competitive advantage.

Acceleration of AI development includes both R&D capabilities (including research funding and efforts to attract top talent) and commercial and government technology development applications. The development of some AI applications can be extremely expensive and beyond the capabilities of any one country or company, necessitating alliances to share infrastructure and costs. A strategy for both competition and cooperation will need to include everything from research, to the sharing of information, to the standards established for applications.

CASE STUDY: SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY9

Although the term “synthetic biology” was first coined in 1912 by the French chemist Stéphane Leduc, its modern conception did not emerge until 1974, when the Polish geneticist Wacław Szybalski described synthetic biology as an emerging phase of molecular biology in which scientists could create new components and add them to existing genomes, or possibly create totally new genomes (NAE and NRC, 2013). Today, although there is no internationally agreed-upon definition for synthetic biology, most people use the term much as

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9 This section is based in part on the presentations at a workshop on synthetic biology held by the committee on March 13, 2021. An agenda for the workshop and speaker biographies are available at https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/05-13-2021/protecting-critical-technologies-for-nationalsecurity-in-an-era-of-openness-and-competition-meeting-3-workshop-on-synthetic-biology.

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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Szybalski did—to describe the design and creation of engineered biological systems.

Synthetic biology represents an emerging and disruptive technology with extremely broad potential application areas, including materials science, medicine, manufacturing, agriculture, sensor technology, and human augmentation, among many others (El Karoui et al., 2019). Synthetic biology systems that perform specified functions using DNA or protein sequences—analogous to the use of computer codes to direct functions and outputs—have enabled scientists to turn cells into powerful pieces of machinery. Synthetic biology can be considered a technology “knowledge” or “development” platform, since it will likely have widely shared and distributed features that enable and support other technologies that use synthetic biology. Many experts predict that synthetic biology and biologically based manufacturing will transform the economy and society by replacing products made with traditional materials with products made of sustainable materials.

Applications of synthetic biology raise many questions regarding biosafety, biosecurity, and ethics (Li et al., 2021). Synthetic biology is a dual-use technology with many offensive and defensive military applications. For example, it allows people to develop—either intentionally or unintentionally—pathogens with enhanced transmissibility or lethality, including entirely new kinds of biological agents and toxins (NASEM, 2018b). To illustrate, in 2018 scientists used gene synthesis to reconstruct the genome of the virus that causes horsepox, a relative of smallpox, without having any physical access to the virus and without violating any national or international regulations (Cunningham and Geis, 2020). These kinds of demonstrations suggest that if the United States is to protect itself against the harmful applications of synthetic biology, it will have to establish itself as a leader in the field and work with other nations to develop international norms and regulations regarding its use.

Five major technologies have enabled the rapid development of the synthetic biology field. These technologies—gene sequencing, gene editing, gene arrays, gene synthesis, and single-cell technology—continue to be the foundational tools used to develop new synthetic biology systems. Each of these technologies has undergone advances in efficiency that in some cases rival those characteristic of microelectronics. The Human Genome Project, for example, took 13 years, involved 40 institutions and thousands of people, and cost roughly $3 billion. Today, a single high-throughput gene sequencer could sequence the same genome for less than $1,000—3 million times below the original cost—100,000 times faster than the 40 labs originally involved (Figure 2-1). Similarly, in 2000 a DNA microarray chip could analyze several thousands of pieces of information at roughly $2 per unit of information; today, a modern chip can detect 28 million genetic markers at a cost that is more than a million times lower. These dramatic cost and time reductions are characteristic of platforms, which often offer massive scaling opportunities.

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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Image
FIGURE 2-1 Cost of human genome sequencing.
SOURCE: Based on data from Wetterstrand (2021).

Although the above five technologies were developed primarily in the academic sector, they were scaled up and applied in the private sector, with engineering playing a pivotal role in their success. Furthermore, as these technologies spread and became more affordable, cost reductions opened up new markets, supporting the bottom-up development of the synthetic biology field. Improvements in these technologies have not only broadened the scope of what synthetic biology can accomplish but also streamlined the experimentation process, requiring less time and effort, and fewer personnel.

Current State

Across its broad applications, synthetic biology aims to design simplified biological components that can be combined to perform specified functions reliably and reproducibly. In this way, it is both generative and open-ended. While synthetic biology is based on biological systems, it represents a novel approach to studying and reimagining those systems using engineering design principles. The interface between engineering and biology makes synthetic biology interconnected, easily automated, flexible, and cost-effective. Moreover, the intersection of AI and synthetic biology will enhance the speed and breadth of synthetic biology’s applications. The inherent diversity of life forms and engineering applications means that synthetic biology is centered not around a single goal, but around a conceptual focus on abstraction and simplification. Through synthetic biology, scientists and engineers are building an ensemble of fundamental capacities that will enable humans to partner with living systems in many different ways.

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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As with AI, a high degree of openness was ingrained in synthetic biology early on. As a result, platforms have diffused across the entire innovation ecosystem, significantly lowering costs. However, openness also creates vulnerabilities. For example, synthetic biology is at risk of being subject to the same mistakes that were made in the development of the internet, whereby security was not built in from the beginning, so that cybersecurity threats are common at both the individual and national levels and are extremely difficult to mitigate, much less eliminate. To set synthetic biology on a different path, protections will need to be incorporated into the design process. Safety measures will need to be automated instead of depending solely on individuals to do the right thing. At the same time, if security constraints are introduced too early in development, it is unclear whether the technology’s potential will be fully realized. Fostering good hygiene in the synthetic biology community also means that protections will have to be maintained and updated continually to reflect developments in the field.

Policy Considerations

Many of the technologies that enabled the growth of the synthetic biology field were developed in the United States. As a result, the United States was an early leader in the field, playing a vital role in preliminary research and applications. The United States continues to enjoy a leadership role due in large part to its significant and sustained support for life sciences R&D and a robust investment and commercialization ecosystem. In recent years, however, many countries have identified synthetic biology as a key future player in the biotechnology sector and have begun to invest large amounts of money in its development, threatening U.S. leadership. China in particular has taken a comprehensive and integrated set of actions to gain leadership in synthetic biology. (Chapter 4 examines China’s efforts in synthetic biology in more detail.) Barriers to entry in synthetic biology applications are moderately low, and the field has developed in an open research setting in which open dissemination of results and international participation are common. In some ways, synthetic biology is in a position analogous to that of the early internet, with an open research environment, collaboration among trusted parties, and no central governance system.

While organizations such as the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Foundation are concerned with education, safety, and security around synthetic biology, the adoption of suggested principles is at the discretion of individual nation-states. Current biotechnology threat frameworks may not apply to synthetic biology applications, and authority is diffuse across multiple federal agencies (NASEM, 2017). The U.S. federal government has yet to develop an overarching funding or governance plan for synthetic biology. Life sciences research is distributed across many agencies and departments of the U.S. government, with no single agency having a primary responsibility for the strength and security of the biotechnology industry. These uncoordinated

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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investments have produced varying degrees of success, raising the question of whether lower-cost, bottom-up strategies in highly emergent systems can drive innovation without the need for top-down planning.

The absence of an international control regime governing synthetic biology creates unique challenges for U.S. national security because of “ethical asymmetry.” There exist few effective international frameworks—including standards, regulations, data measurement/transfer, and trade provisions—to support commercial activity in this field. In places such as China, a loose regulatory regime and strong government-led incentives are designed to spur innovation. Thus the United States will need to address the need for security measures while avoiding placing constraints on R&D that competitors are not placing on themselves.

While freely sharing data can create security problems, it can also be hugely beneficial. The open publication of the SARS-CoV-2 sequence in China, for example, allowed research on COVID-19 to proceed rapidly worldwide. To determine how to protect synthetic biology, the U.S. government, academia, and industry will need to share information, ideas, and perspectives to build awareness of security issues, determine best practices, and learn about future and potentially disruptive developments.

Ultimately, the United States remains well positioned to lead the synthetic biology field because of its strength in the life sciences and engineering and its robust startup investment community. Although people disagree on how open the synthetic biology field should be, the use of synthetic biology to improve human lives is likely to create widespread public support for the field. Furthermore, establishing powerful and effective countermeasures for security threats would deter people from using these technologies for harm.

International agreements on standards for design, assembly, data transfer, and data measurement; on regulatory rules; and on the language used could all help advance interdisciplinary and international collaborations that could deliver on the promises of the synthetic biology field. By contrast, absent some form of agreed-upon international standards, many of the products and processes generated by synthetic biology will not translate well to industrial settings, which depend on reproducible processes that are governed by exacting regulatory requirements.

Readying synthetic biology products for the market will require simultaneous progress along many fronts (NAE and NRC, 2013). Existing intellectual property systems will have to be reexamined to determine whether a new national or international intellectual property framework is needed to govern the field’s commercialization. Benchmarks will be needed to develop a plan and outline goals for the field. Partnerships with industries will have to be strengthened so that research and manufacturing work hand in hand rather than against one another. Capital investments will need to grow to enable the costly transition from research to production. Proof of effectiveness will be necessary for new products to create trust in these technologies and public support for the field. Concerns about genetically modified organisms will have to be addressed.

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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These are among the concerns that will have to be addressed in developing a coherent and comprehensive roadmap for the potential future of synthetic biology.

The underlying forms that will define most future activities in synthetic biology are being shaped and crystallized now, both in the United States and worldwide. The United States can only expect to help lead and shape these efforts if it maintains its leadership in the field. To prepare for the future and remain a global leader in the field, the United States will have to make the development of a coherent roadmap and strategy for synthetic biology a high priority (NASEM, 2020b). A roadmap provides targets that incentivize innovation and collaboration, while also providing the flexibility to adapt these targets as the field develops and future breakthroughs reshape the field. Conversely, given the rapid pace of change in synthetic biology, U.S. research leadership in the field could be adversely affected if restrictions were to slow progress.

CASE STUDY: QUANTUM COMPUTING AND QUANTUM INFORMATION SCIENCE

Quantum computing and quantum information and communication technologies represent a future technology area with a very high potential for disruption, including the disruption of existing technologies related to national security. Quantum computers are not the only potential use of quantum control and measurement technologies, even though the field is often discussed using that term.

Quantum computing is the application of quantum laws in the service of computation (NASEM, 2019b). Computation might mean solving a problem that one would ordinarily envision being addressed by a classical computer. Here the term “classical computer” is used to refer to a machine, typically made of solid state bits, that can be idealized as a Turing machine. It is important to keep in mind, however, that classical computers now come as banks of fast processors that work in an almost error-free manner.

Much more progress will be necessary before quantum computers will be able to outpace conventional computers for problems of interest. Still, the key to the possible success of quantum computing is that for certain problems, a quantum computer would require fewer steps to derive a solution relative to any classical computer. This exponential speedup means that even a quantum computer with a slow clock speed can outperform a fast classical computer in some critical applications. The most famous example is the reduced difficulty of factoring very large numbers, which potentially changes the effectiveness of many methods of encryption (NASEM, 2019b). This possibility has attracted the interest of government agencies around the world, especially those concerned with national security.

The forms a large error-corrected quantum computer would take are not clear, and this remains an open area of exciting research. As development progresses, people are hopeful that quantum computers will outperform classical

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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computers in a variety of problem areas, such as quantum chemistry and condensed-matter physics, in which the latter computers have reached their limits.

Current State

At universities, quantum computing and quantum information are seen as important frontier topics of research. The field offers many opportunities for young faculty and postdoctoral researchers, and government funding to pursue these opportunities appears to be readily available. At the same time, private companies have been making extraordinary investments in these new technologies and have been able to lure talent in the field away from academia. Amazon, for example, now invests in both theoretical and experimental quantum science and has constructed an entire building on the Caltech campus devoted to quantum work. Microsoft, Google, and IBM, as well as many other companies, also invest significantly in quantum sciences. In addition, consulting companies are helping traditional companies interface with the new hardware and understand technical issues such as quantum algorithms. For many of these companies, the primary goal is to stay abreast of the field and be ready to take advantage if and when a major breakthrough occurs.

People with the skills required to work in quantum computing and information science are scarce, and the employment market in the field in both industry and academia in the United States, Canada, Israel, Europe, and Asia is extremely favorable. However, the field has not yet advanced to the point at which an established platform exists, and it is possible that this will remain the case, at least in the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, the potential of the science is so extraordinary that the United States needs to be able to compete at the forefront of the field.

Policy Considerations

Uses of quantum computers related to military and national security may emerge through either government or private-sector, commercial efforts. Unlike the other technologies highlighted in these case studies, quantum computing is not a platform technology; instead, it represents a more traditional emergent technology with a high potential for disruption of existing national security–related technologies (along with significant commercial applications). Barriers to entry and the R&D investments needed to create a working quantum computer are very high. For these reasons, in contrast with the other case studies explored in this chapter, much of the existing framework for managing risk applies to this technology.

In the United States, government funding for work by universities and government laboratories in quantum science is augmented by very large-scale commercial efforts. Google, IBM, and the private company Rigetti have prototype quantum computers fabricated with around 100 superconducting qubits, and groups in China are building comparable devices (Parker et al., 2022). The error

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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rates with these devices are sufficiently high that these architectures will not scale up without error correction, so they are not yet of practical use. Nevertheless, these devices have been used to demonstrate “quantum advantage,” which means a quantum computer is performing tasks that would essentially take forever on a classical computer.

As in other areas of advanced technology, the continued development of quantum computing and quantum information science will require a collaborative effort among government, academia, and the private sector, which inevitably will include researchers working in multiple countries. A 2016 report from the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC, 2016) identifies five impediments to progress:

  • Institutional boundaries: Because teams with a diverse range of skills will be needed to make necessary advances, institutional barriers within and among organizations will have to be overcome to encourage research collaborations.
  • Education and workforce training: Progress will require researchers and research teams with deep expertise not only in quantum mechanics but also in computer science, applied mathematics, electrical engineering, systems engineering, and other fields, which in turn will require new forms of multidisciplinary education and training.
  • Technology and knowledge transfer: Commercialization of quantum computing applications will require the transfer of knowledge from universities and federal laboratories to the private sector; government programs and policies, such as protection of intellectual property, can enhance this process.
  • Materials and fabrication: The availability of fabrication capabilities for quantum materials has seen limited progress in some areas, a gap that calls for systems-level engineering that can be carried out, in part, in federal facilities.
  • Level and stability of funding: Instability of funding caused in part by a lack of coordination among federal agencies has led researchers in the field to pursue alternative careers or opportunities outside the United States where funding is more reliable.

In addition, quantum computing is one of the areas in which commercial advances could be leveraged for military purposes, which complicates the protection of these technologies (Sayler, 2022b).

International competition in areas related to quantum computing is intense, and access to the top talent in the field is a major driver shaping the competitive landscape. First-mover status has given the United States an advantage, and R&D leadership remains a key determinant of success. Maintaining a stable, robust, and well-funded R&D effort is essential to ensure

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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that the United States carries out the first development of this disruptive technology. Because of the very tight global market for R&D experts in quantum technology, the United States needs to anticipate a vigorous effort by competitors and adversaries to attract U.S.-based talent to support their efforts, and to carefully monitor advances in the field. Attraction and retention of key scientists and engineers will need to be a U.S. priority.

IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY AND PRACTICE

The case studies examined in this chapter lead to several broad conclusions.

First, enabling the ability to develop and apply technologies is generally more important than protecting any specific technology. In particular, providing support for the core institutions that allow technologies to prosper—including educational systems, infrastructure, human resources, and systems of open communications and collaboration—is critical to ensuring national competitiveness.

Second, a major determinant of the nation’s future competitive position will be how rapidly new capabilities can be brought to bear on problems. Economic and national security both depend on the ability to quickly incorporate new ideas and technologies into systems that meet important goals. Constraints placed on R&D can hamper the efforts that are essential to remain competitive.

Finally, enabling the ability to develop and use platforms is central to maintaining the competitiveness of the United States. Platforms are the foundational systems that underlie the development and commercialization of new technologies.

The next chapter explores changes in the global competitive landscape. Once dominant in science and technology and the industries based on them, the United States and its allies are now competing against other countries with strong science and technology enterprises. As a result, increasing numbers of technologies, including those vital to military preparedness and economic growth, are being developed and produced in countries outside the United States, often as part of a broader international commercial sector.

Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
×
Page 39
Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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Page 40
Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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Page 42
Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Changes in Technology Development and Commercialization." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26647.
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U.S. leadership in technology innovation is central to our nation’s interests, including its security, economic prosperity, and quality of life. Our nation has created a science and technology ecosystem that fosters innovation, risk taking, and the discovery of new ideas that lead to new technologies through robust collaborations across and within academia, industry, and government, and our research and development enterprise has attracted the best and brightest scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs from around the world. The quality and openness of our research enterprise have been the basis of our global leadership in technological innovation, which has brought enormous advantages to our national interests.

In today’s rapidly changing landscapes of technology and competition, however, the assumption that the United States will continue to hold a dominant competitive position by depending primarily on its historical approach of identifying specific and narrow technology areas requiring controls or restrictions is not valid. Further challenging that approach is the proliferation of highly integrated and globally shared platforms that power and enable most modern technology applications.

To review the protection of technologies that have strategic importance for national security in an era of openness and competition, Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage considers policies and practices related to the production and commercialization of research in domains critical to national security. This report makes recommendations for changes to technology protection policies and practices that reflect the current realities of how technologies are developed and incorporated into new products and processes.

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