Adrian JThe White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has released an updated list of critical and emerging technologies (CETs) that are potentially significant to U.S. national security. This list outlines technologies that could chart new pathways in American innovation and strengthen the nation’s security.
The critical and emerging technology areas in the 2024 update include advanced computing, advanced engineering materials, advanced gas turbine engine technologies, advanced and networked sensing and signature management, advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, biotechnologies, clean energy generation and storage, data privacy, data security, and cybersecurity technologies, directed energy, highly automated, autonomous, and uncrewed systems and robotics, human-machine interfaces, hypersonics, integrated communication and networking technologies, positioning, navigation, and timing technologies, quantum information and enabling technologies, semiconductors and microelectronics, and space technologies and systems.
The National Security Strategy recognizes the central role of technology in today’s geopolitical competition and the future of national security. The United States and its allies have long relied on technological leadership for economic prosperity and military strength. Critical and emerging technologies are expected to reshape economies, transform militaries, and shape the world in the next decade. The U.S. aims to use these technologies to increase security, prosperity, and democratic values for its people and like-minded democracies.
The updated CET list builds upon earlier lists and may inform government-wide and agency-specific efforts to support technological competitiveness and national security. In the area of quantum information and enabling technologies, the list includes quantum computing, materials, isotopes, and fabrication techniques for quantum devices, quantum sensing, quantum communications and networking, and supporting systems.
