• Generative AI Speeds up Cybersecurity Defenses

    Faster adversary emulation helps defenders stop cyberattacks: Scientists are using generative AI to accelerate a key step in the defense against cyberattacks, performing complex operations in minutes instead of weeks.

  • Three National Security Laboratories, One AI Model

    A significant milestone has been not only accomplished but exceeded in the effort to advance artificial intelligence for national security: A federated-learning model prototype. Federated learning is a technique for training AI models on decentralized data.

  • How Hollywood-Style “Break in” Rooms Are Securing the Future of Nuclear

    Security is paramount for the nation’s current fleet of light water reactors, but the stakes for small modular reactors are especially high. Small modular reactors promise quicker build timelines and lower operating costs than light water reactors. They achieve these enhancements through better designs, higher levels of automation and smaller operating crews. But those same design choices could expand the opportunity for cyber and insider threats.

  • Entity Resolution: The Security Technology You Probably Haven’t Heard Of

    The concept “entity resolution” (ER) is probably unfamiliar, but it underpins much of the world’s security—in telecommunications, banking and national security.

  • There’s Little Evidence Tech Is Much Help Stopping School Shootings

    Different security technologies appeal to institutions struggling to protect their communities, and are marketed aggressively as the future of school shooting prevention. I’m a criminologist who studies mass shootings and school violence. In my research, I’ve found that there’s a lack of evidence to support the effectiveness of these technological interventions.

  • “DeepSeek Is in the Driver’s Seat. That’s a Big Security Problem”

    Democratic countries have a smart-car problem. For those that don’t act quickly and decisively, it’s about to become a severe national security headache.

  • A Prisoner’s Dilemma in the Race to Artificial General Intelligence

    A new report from RAND aims to represent the ongoing policy debate on the race to artificial general intelligence (AGI) in a mathematically neutral model which allows policymakers to compare the outcome of alternative strategies in international technology competition.

  • Capturing Rogue Drones

    A new system is capable of repelling and capturing unauthorized drones. The defensive system’s own drones are equipped with an extendable net which snags unruly drones.

  • Scientists Pioneer Breakthrough Fingerprint Forensic Test

    For decades, investigators have struggled to recover fingerprints from weapons because any biological trace is usually destroyed by the high temperatures, friction and gas released after a gun is fired. Scientists have developed a method to recover fingerprints from ammunition casing, once thought nearly impossible.

  • Using Smartphones to Improve Disaster Search and Rescue

    When a natural disaster strikes, time is of the essence if people are trapped under rubble.When visibility is limited, sound that can penetrate through rubble is the key to finding trapped victims quickly.

  • Future of Geothermal in New Mexico

    New Mexico is known for bringing the heat with its famous green chiles, but a new report points to another source of heat that’s causing excitement. A new report lays out the opportunities —and challenges —to harnessing the state’s geothermal resources as a reliable, sustained domestic source of energy.

  • China: An Emerging Software Power

    China’s early success in global AI competition, bolstered by continued massive state investment and other advantages, could help it extend its dominance in international markets for manufactured goods to the software realm.

  • Physical Approaches to Civilian Biodefense

    Progress in biological sciences and technologies will offer more opportunities to improve human well-being in the coming decades, but this progress may also lower barriers that are blocking bad actors from engineering pathogens to cause destruction. We need to identify potential preparedness measures for challenging biological threats.

  • U.S. Can’t Overcome Manufacturing Gap with China

    The United States should not kid itself. It will not recover its manufacturing position from China in any foreseeable future. Assuming zero growth of China’s manufacturing sector for the next 20 years, closing the manufacturing gap would require U.S. manufacturing to grow at a torrid rate of 6 percent per year. That’s just implausible.

  • AI-enabled Intrusions: What Anthropic’s Disclosure Really Means

    Last week, AI company Anthropic reported with ‘high confidence’ that a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group had weaponized Anthropic’s own AI tools to run a largely automated cyberattack on several technology firms and government agencies. The September operation is the first publicly known case of an AI system conducting target reconnaissance with only minimal human direction.