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Reaction Isn’t Enough. Nexperia Case Shows We Must Pre-empt China’s Tech Grabs
The Dutch government’s decision on 30 September to impose a last-resort restraint order on China-owned Netherlands-based chipmaker Nexperia is more than a trade dispute. It’s the consequence of a belated realization that technology competition with China is real. Economic security in open and liberal democracies demands foresight, not last-minute intervention.
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Scientists Investigate 3D-printed Steels for Use in Next-Generation Nuclear Reactors
X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy reveal how heat treatments can help 3D-printed steels shape up for nuclear service
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New Modeling Tool Advances Grid Reliability
Covering half of North America, the U.S. electric grid functions somewhat like a vast, complex organism. Researchers have developed a new simulation platform for understanding and predicting the behavior of this modern grid.
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Expedition to Search for Amelia Earhart’s Plane Postponed to 2026
A scientific mission to locate Amelia Earhart’s lost aircraft in a lagoon of Nikumaroro Island, has been postponed to 2026. The decision comes as the team awaits additional clearance from the Kiribati government and as seasonal weather challenges kick in over the Pacific Ocean during winter months.
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“Battleship”-Style Math Can Improve Sustainable Design, Groundwater Management, Nuclear Waste Storage and More
Scientists can now accurately determine where randomly distributed components appear in concrete, soil, and other common materials using a statistical model. The findings could enable the design of better, stronger, cheaper materials.
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Electric Cars May Be the “Green” Choice, but They're Driving a Scramble for Critical Minerals
Our cars are responsible for about 20 per cent of global carbon emissions. The move to electric vehicles (EVs) is central to the effort to decarbonize the world’s transport. But the clean-energy transition is also creating a new extractive frontier: the minerals that power electric car batteries. And the same forces that shaped the geopolitics of oil are re-emerging in the race to power the electric revolution.
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Innovative AI Video Generators Produce Antisemitic, Hateful and Violent Outputs
In a matter of seconds, anyone can now use popular AI video generation tools to create antisemitic and extremist content. As this technology continues to evolve, existing guardrails often fail to catch prompts that can be used to generate extremist content, contributing to the proliferation of antisemitic propaganda across social media.
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Technology Evolves the Tactics: Preparing for the Rise of Terrorist AI Harms
Terrorist groups, like the societies they emerge from, adapt to new technologies. As AI capabilities evolve, so too do the tactics of extremist actors. While the full effects may take years to observe, as the technologies continue to develop, we are starting to see them directly alter extremism tradecraft.
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Satellites and Space Trash Threaten the Ozone Layer and Space Safety
Every year, we shoot several thousand satellites and other objects out into space. When satellites die, they become space trash that threatens aerospace safety.
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China, the United States, and a Critical Chokepoint on Minerals
Critical minerals today are “America’s most dangerous dependence,” in the words of CFR’s Heidi Crebo-Rediker. With near total control of the world’s critical minerals production, China maintains significant economic leverage over access to inputs that are necessary for everything from everyday products like smartphones to advanced weapons systems like the F-35.
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A New Generation of Industries Emerges in Texas as Feds Push to Mine More Rare Minerals
The U.S. doesn’t produce the minerals and metals needed for renewable energy, microchips or military technology. Major oil companies are drilling in East Texas again, but not for oil. This time, they’re after lithium for batteries and other rare elements.
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Bookshelf: A Tale of American Lawyers and Chinese Engineers
The U.S. and China have fundamental differences, a new book argues. China would be an “engineering state” whereas the U.S. is a “lawyerly society.” Most Chinese Communist Party leaders have been engineers focused on building mega projects such as highways, bridges, fast trains. and airports. In recent decades the U.S. has become a “lawyerly society” as the country’s elite, dominated by lawyers, focused on procedure and process rather than getting things done.
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How AI Can Improve Storm Surge Forecasts to Help Save Lives
Hurricanes are America’s most destructive natural hazards, causing more deaths and property damage than any other type of disaster. The No. 1 cause of the damage and deaths from hurricanes is storm surge. I have recently been exploring ways that artificial intelligence can improve the speed of storm surge forecasting.
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Europe’s Banks Quietly Mobilize for Economic Warfare
For years, banks treated defense as a reputational issue, as well as an environmental, social and governance risk, often lumping it with tobacco or fossil fuels as something to be managed at arm’s length. That era is ending. Russia’s war in Ukraine, China’s coercive trade tactics and the United States’ pressure on Europe to shoulder more of its defense burden have exposed the limits of moralistic restraint. Financial mobilization is the new norm.
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UK Man Attempting to Make Firearms Using 3D Printer Guilty of Terrorism Offenses
A man has been found guilty of various terrorism and firearms offenses after he was caught attempting to use a 3D-printer to make a sub-machine gun.
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The long view
Building Trust into Tech: A Framework for Sovereign Resilience
Governments are facing a critical question: who can be trusted to build and manage their countries’ most sensitive systems? Vendor choices, for everything from cloud infrastructure to identity platforms, are no longer just commercial; they are strategic.
Researchers Unveil First-Ever Defense Against Cryptanalytic Attacks on AI
Security researchers have developed the first functional defense mechanism capable of protecting against “cryptanalytic” attacks used to “steal” the model parameters that define how an AI system works.
Data Centers’ Insatiable Demand for Electricity Will Change the Entire Energy Sector
When the first large language models were unleashed, it triggered a headache for authorities around the world as they tried to figure out how to satisfy data centers’ endless demand for electricity.
Will Texas Actually Run Out of Water?
You asked our AI chatbot about Texas’ water supply. We answered some of the questions that it couldn’t.