The White House is laying out new priorities for how federal agencies invest in and develop science and technology for national security, directing them to focus research and development (R&D) efforts on areas ranging from artificial intelligence and cybersecurity to quantum, semiconductors, biotechnology, and space.
The new National Security Science and Technology Strategy (NSSTS), released on Aug. 17, establishes four pillars for federal science and technology (S&T) efforts: focusing technology competition, building technological resilience, accelerating innovation, and protecting national security S&T.
The strategy is intended to guide federally funded R&D in support of the 2025 National Security Strategy.
“This National Security Science and Technology Strategy aims to help focus more of the American research and development enterprise on the support of critical military capabilities, homeland defense and resilience, and economic security goals,” White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios said in an Aug. 17 post on X.
“This country has the greatest technological innovation ecosystem on the planet,” Kratsios added. “If we make clear the needs of the nation, there is no challenge our scientists, engineers, and innovators cannot overcome.”
The strategy identifies a set of technologies that agencies should prioritize to maintain U.S. battlefield advantages, including:
- Advanced manufacturing and materials
- AI and autonomy
- Communications and networking
- Directed energy
- Future computing technologies
- Hypersonics and advanced missile technologies
- Information management and cybersecurity
- Nuclear energy
- Positioning, navigation, and timing
- Semiconductors and microelectronics
- Sensing and signature management
- Space technologies
The White House expands on those priorities in an updated list of 14 critical and emerging technology (CET) areas in Appendix A, adding biotechnology and quantum information technologies. The strategy directs relevant agencies to include a “dedicated focus” on maintaining U.S. leadership in those areas within their R&D activities and to prioritize their national security applications.
The technology priorities are also intended to shape federal R&D spending. For early- and mid-stage development, agencies should pursue public-private partnerships that prioritize the 14 CETs, with the strategy specifically pointing to AI, quantum, nuclear, biotechnology, and space.
For later-stage development, the strategy says agencies should generally rely more heavily on the private sector, including by acting as customers for technology solutions and services.
“Agencies should focus resources where they can best complement rather than compete with private sector investment,” the strategy says, adding that government should take on more of the burden in areas where there is less incentive for private investment.
The updated technology list includes specific capabilities within each field. AI priorities include foundation models, multi-agent systems, autonomous command and control, robotics and embodied intelligence, and AI security.
Cyber priorities include AI-enabled and autonomous cyber capabilities, post-quantum cryptography, digital identity technologies, computing supply chain security, and operational technology and industrial control system security.
Beyond setting technology and investment priorities, the strategy also calls for tighter security around federally funded R&D, including “automated research security vetting of proposals for agency-funded research and continuous monitoring of funded research projects.”
Additionally, the strategy directs agencies to plan their national security S&T activities consistently with the NSSTS. It says the OSTP and National Security Council (NSC) “will coordinate supporting technology-specific strategies or plans at the next level of detail.”
Those follow-on plans should detail how the United States will advance the strategy within each technology area and “account for competitor moves and countermoves,” according to the document. The strategy does not provide a deadline for completing those plans.