The foundations of America’s prosperity are being dismantled

Stay Ahead, Stay ONMINE

The foundations of America’s prosperity are being dismantled

Ever since World War II, the US has been the global leader in science and technology—and benefited immensely from it. Research fuels American innovation and the economy in turn. Scientists around the world want to study in the US and collaborate with American scientists to produce more of that research. These international collaborations play a critical role in American soft power and diplomacy. The products Americans can buy, the drugs they have access to, the diseases they’re at risk of catching—are all directly related to the strength of American research and its connections to the world’s scientists. That scientific leadership is now being dismantled, according to more than 10 federal workers who spoke to MIT Technology Review, as the Trump administration—spearheaded by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—slashes personnel, programs, and agencies. Meanwhile, the president himself has gone after relationships with US allies. These workers come from several agencies, including the Departments of State, Defense, and Commerce, the US Agency for International Development, and the National Science Foundation. All of them occupy scientific and technical roles, many of which the average American has never heard of but which are nevertheless critical, coordinating research, distributing funding, supporting policymaking, or advising diplomacy. They warn that dismantling the behind-the-scenes scientific research programs that backstop American life could lead to long-lasting, perhaps irreparable damage to everything from the quality of health care to the public’s access to next-generation consumer technologies. The US took nearly a century to craft its rich scientific ecosystem; if the unraveling that has taken place over the past month continues, Americans will feel the effects for decades to come. Most of the federal workers spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk or for fear of being targeted. Many are completely stunned and terrified by the scope and totality of the actions. While every administration brings its changes, keeping the US a science and technology leader has never been a partisan issue. No one predicted the wholesale assault on these foundations of American prosperity. “If you believe that innovation is important to economic development, then throwing a wrench in one of the most sophisticated and productive innovation machines in world history is not a good idea,” says Deborah Seligsohn, an assistant professor of political science at Villanova University who worked for two decades in the State Department on science issues. “They’re setting us up for economic decline.” The biggest funder of innovation The US currently has the most top-quality research institutes in the world. This includes world-class universities like MIT (which publishes MIT Technology Review) and the University of California, Berkeley; national labs like Oak Ridge and Los Alamos; and federal research facilities run by agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Defense. Much of this network was developed by the federal government after World War II to bolster the US position as a global superpower. Before the Trump administration’s wide-ranging actions, which now threaten to slash federal research funding, the government remained by far the largest supporter of scientific progress. Outside of its own labs and facilities, it funded more than 50% of research and development across higher education, according to data from the National Science Foundation. In 2023, that came to nearly $60 billion out of the $109 billion that universities spent on basic science and engineering. The return on these investments is difficult to measure. It can often take years or decades for this kind of basic science research to have tangible effects on the lives of Americans and people globally, and on the US’s place in the world. But history is littered with examples of the transformative effect that this funding produces over time. The internet and GPS were first developed through research backed by the Department of Defense, as was the quantum dot technology behind high-resolution QLED television screens. Well before they were useful or commercially relevant, the development of neural networks that underpin nearly all modern AI systems was substantially supported by the National Science Foundation. The decades-long drug discovery process that led to Ozempic was incubated by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Institutes of Health. Microchips. Self-driving cars. MRIs. The flu shot. The list goes on and on. In her 2013 book The Entrepreneurial State, Mariana Mazzucato, a leading economist studying innovation at University College London, found that every major technological transformation in the US, from electric cars to Google to the iPhone, can trace its roots back to basic science research once funded by the federal government. If the past offers any lesson, that means every major transformation in the future could be shortchanged with the destruction of that support. The Trump administration’s distaste for regulation will arguably be a boon in the short term for some parts of the tech industry, including crypto and AI. But the federal workers said the president’s and Musk’s undermining of basic science research will hurt American innovation in the long run. “Rather than investing in the future, you’re burning through scientific capital,” an employee at the State Department said. “You can build off the things you already know, but you’re not learning anything new. Twenty years later, you fall behind because you stopped making new discoveries.” A global currency The government doesn’t just give money, either. It supports American science in numerous other ways, and the US reaps the returns. The Department of State helps attract the best students from around the world to American universities. Amid stagnating growth in the number of homegrown STEM PhD graduates, recruiting foreign students remains one of the strongest pathways for the US to expand its pool of technical talent, especially in strategic areas like batteries and semiconductors. Many of those students stay for years, if not the rest of their lives; even if they leave the country, they’ve already spent some of their most productive years in the US and will retain a wealth of professional connections with whom they’ll collaborate, thereby continuing to contribute to US science. The State Department also establishes agreements between the US and other countries and helps broker partnerships between American and international universities. That helps scientists collaborate across borders on everything from global issues like climate change to research that requires equipment on opposite sides of the world, such as the measurement of gravitational waves. The international development work of USAID in global health, poverty reduction, and conflict alleviation—now virtually shut down in its entirety—was designed to build up goodwill toward the US globally; it improved regional stability for decades. In addition to its inherent benefits, this allowed American scientists to safely access diverse geographies and populations, as well as plant and animal species not found in the US. Such international interchange played just as critical a role as government funding in many crucial inventions. Several federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, also help collect and aggregate critical data on disease, health trends, air quality, weather, and more from disparate sources that feed into the work of scientists across the country. The National Institutes of Health, for example, has since 2015 been running the Precision Medicine Initiative, the only effort of its kind to collect extensive and granular health data from over 1 million Americans who volunteer their medical records, genetic history, and even Fitbit data to help researchers understand health disparities and develop personalized and more effective treatments for disorders from heart and lung disease to cancer. The data set, which is too expensive for any one university to assemble and maintain, has already been used in hundreds of papers that will lay the foundation for the next generation of life-saving pharmaceuticals. Beyond fueling innovation, a well-supported science and technology ecosystem bolsters US national security and global influence. When people want to study at American universities, attend international conferences hosted on American soil, or move to the US to work or to found their own companies, the US stays the center of global innovation activity. This ensures that the country continues to get access to the best people and ideas, and gives it an outsize role in setting global scientific practices and priorities. US research norms, including academic freedom and a robust peer review system, become global research norms that lift the overall quality of science. International agencies like the World Health Organization take significant cues from American guidance. US scientific leadership has long been one of the country’s purest tools of soft power and diplomacy as well. Countries keen to learn from the American innovation ecosystem and to have access to American researchers and universities have been more prone to partner with the US and align with its strategic priorities. Just one example: Science diplomacy has long played an important role in maintaining the US’s strong relationship with the Netherlands, which is home to ASML, the only company in the world that can produce the extreme ultraviolet lithography machines needed to produce the most advanced semiconductors. These are critical for both AI development and national security. International science cooperation has also served as a stabilizing force in otherwise difficult relationships. During the Cold War, the US and USSR continued to collaborate on the International Space Station; during the recent heightened economic competition between the US and China, the countries have remained each other’s top scientific partners. “Actively working together to solve problems that we both care about helps maintain the connections and the context but also helps build respect,” Seligsohn says. The federal government itself is a significant beneficiary of the country’s convening power for technical expertise. Among other things, experts both inside and outside the government support its sound policymaking in science and technology. During the US Senate AI Insight Forums, co-organized by Senator Chuck Schumer through the fall of 2023, for example, the Senate heard from more than 150 experts, many of whom were born abroad and studying at American universities, working at or advising American companies, or living permanently in the US as naturalized American citizens. Federal scientists and technical experts at government agencies also work on wide-ranging goals critical to the US, including building resilience in the face of an increasingly erratic climate; researching strategic technologies such as next-generation battery technology to reduce the country’s reliance on minerals not found in the US; and monitoring global infectious diseases to prevent the next pandemic. “Every issue that the US faces, there are people that are trying to do research on it and there are partnerships that have to happen,” the State Department employee said. A system in jeopardy Now the breadth and velocity of the Trump administration’s actions has led to an unprecedented assault on every pillar upholding American scientific leadership. For starters, the purging of tens of thousands—and perhaps soon hundreds of thousands—of federal workers is removing scientists and technologists from the government and paralyzing the ability of critical agencies to function. Across multiple agencies, science and technology fellowship programs, designed to bring in talented early-career staff with advanced STEM degrees, have shuttered. Many other federal scientists were among the thousands who were terminated as probationary employees, a status they held because of the way scientific roles are often contractually structured. Some agencies that were supporting or conducting their own research, including the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, are no longer functionally operational. USAID has effectively shuttered, eliminating a bastion of US expertise, influence, and credibility overnight. “Diplomacy is built on relationships. If we’ve closed all these clinics and gotten rid of technical experts in our knowledge base inside the government, why would any foreign government have respect for the US in our ability to hold our word and in our ability to actually be knowledgeable?” a terminated USAID worker said. “I really hope America can save itself.” Now the Trump administration has sought to reverse some terminations after discovering that many were key to national security, including nuclear safety employees responsible for designing, building, and maintaining the country’s nuclear weapons arsenal. But many federal workers I spoke to can no longer imagine staying in the public sector. Some are considering going into industry. Others are wondering whether it will be better to move abroad. “It’s just such a waste of American talent,” said Fiona Coleman, a terminated federal scientist, her voice cracking with emotion as she described the long years of schooling and training she and her colleagues went through to serve the government. Many fear the US has also singlehandedly kneecapped its own ability to attract talent from abroad. Over the last 10 years, even as American universities have continued to lead the world, many universities in other countries have rapidly leveled up. That includes those in Canada, where liberal immigration policies and lower tuition fees have driven a 200% increase in international student enrollment over the last decade, according to Anna Esaki-Smith, cofounder of a higher-education research consultancy called Education Rethink and author of Make College Your Superpower. Germany has also seen an influx, thanks to a growing number of English-taught programs and strong connections between universities and German industry. Chinese students, who once represented the largest share of foreign students in the US, are increasingly staying at home or opting to study in places like Hong Kong, Singapore, and the UK. During the first Trump administration, many international students were already more reluctant to come to the US because of the president’s hostile rhetoric. With the return and rapid escalation of that rhetoric, Esaki-Smith is hearing from some universities that international students are declining their admissions offers. Add to that the other recent developments—the potential dramatic cuts in federal research funding, the deletion of scores of rich public data sets on health and the environment, the clampdown on academic freedom for research that appears related to diversity, equity, and inclusion and the fear that these restrictions could ultimately encompass other politically charged topics like climate change or vaccines—and many more international science and engineering students could decide to head elsewhere. “I’ve been hearing this increasingly from several postdocs and early-career professors, fearing the cuts in NIH or NSF grants, that they’re starting to look for funding or job opportunities in other countries,” Coleman told me. “And then we’re going to be training up the US’s competitors.” The attacks could similarly weaken the productivity of those who stay at American universities. While many of the Trump administration’s actions are now being halted and scrutinized by US judges, the chaos has weakened a critical prerequisite for tackling the toughest research problems: a long-term stable environment. With reports that the NSF is combing through research grants for words like “women,” “diverse,” and “institutional” to determine whether they violate President Trump’s executive order on DEIA programs, a chilling effect is also setting in among federally funded academics uncertain whether they’ll get caught in the dragnet. To scientists abroad, the situation in the US government has marked American institutions and researchers as potentially unreliable partners, several federal workers told me. If international researchers think collaborations with the US can end at any moment when funds are abruptly pulled or certain topics or keywords are suddenly blacklisted, many of them could steer clear and look to other countries. “I’m really concerned about the instability we’re showing,” another employee at the State Department said. “What’s the point in even engaging? Because science is a long-term initiative and process that outlasts administrations and political cycles.” Meanwhile, international scientists have far more options these days for high-caliber colleagues to collaborate with outside America. In recent years, for example, China has made a remarkable ascent to become a global peer in scientific discoveries. By some metrics, it has even surpassed the US; it started accounting for more of the top 1% of most-cited papers globally, often called the Nobel Prize tier, back in 2019 and has continued to improve the quality of the rest of its research. Where Chinese universities can also entice international collaborators with substantial resources, the US is more limited in its ability to offer tangible funding, the State employee said. Until now, the US has maintained its advantage in part through the prestige of its institutions and its more open cultural norms, including stronger academic freedom. But several federal scientists warn that this advantage is dissipating. “America is made up of so many different people contributing to it. There’s such a powerful global community that makes this country what it is, especially in science and technology and academia and research. We’re going to lose that; there’s not a chance in the world that we’re not going to lose that through stuff like this,” says Brigid Cakouros, a federal scientist who was also terminated from USAID. “I have no doubt that the international science community will ultimately be okay. It’ll just be a shame for the US to isolate themselves from it.”

That scientific leadership is now being dismantled, according to more than 10 federal workers who spoke to MIT Technology Review, as the Trump administration—spearheaded by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—slashes personnel, programs, and agencies. Meanwhile, the president himself has gone after relationships with US allies.

These workers come from several agencies, including the Departments of State, Defense, and Commerce, the US Agency for International Development, and the National Science Foundation. All of them occupy scientific and technical roles, many of which the average American has never heard of but which are nevertheless critical, coordinating research, distributing funding, supporting policymaking, or advising diplomacy.

They warn that dismantling the behind-the-scenes scientific research programs that backstop American life could lead to long-lasting, perhaps irreparable damage to everything from the quality of health care to the public’s access to next-generation consumer technologies. The US took nearly a century to craft its rich scientific ecosystem; if the unraveling that has taken place over the past month continues, Americans will feel the effects for decades to come.

Most of the federal workers spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk or for fear of being targeted. Many are completely stunned and terrified by the scope and totality of the actions. While every administration brings its changes, keeping the US a science and technology leader has never been a partisan issue. No one predicted the wholesale assault on these foundations of American prosperity.

“If you believe that innovation is important to economic development, then throwing a wrench in one of the most sophisticated and productive innovation machines in world history is not a good idea,” says Deborah Seligsohn, an assistant professor of political science at Villanova University who worked for two decades in the State Department on science issues. “They’re setting us up for economic decline.”

The biggest funder of innovation

The US currently has the most top-quality research institutes in the world. This includes world-class universities like MIT (which publishes MIT Technology Review) and the University of California, Berkeley; national labs like Oak Ridge and Los Alamos; and federal research facilities run by agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Defense. Much of this network was developed by the federal government after World War II to bolster the US position as a global superpower.

Before the Trump administration’s wide-ranging actions, which now threaten to slash federal research funding, the government remained by far the largest supporter of scientific progress. Outside of its own labs and facilities, it funded more than 50% of research and development across higher education, according to data from the National Science Foundation. In 2023, that came to nearly $60 billion out of the $109 billion that universities spent on basic science and engineering.

The return on these investments is difficult to measure. It can often take years or decades for this kind of basic science research to have tangible effects on the lives of Americans and people globally, and on the US’s place in the world. But history is littered with examples of the transformative effect that this funding produces over time. The internet and GPS were first developed through research backed by the Department of Defense, as was the quantum dot technology behind high-resolution QLED television screens. Well before they were useful or commercially relevant, the development of neural networks that underpin nearly all modern AI systems was substantially supported by the National Science Foundation. The decades-long drug discovery process that led to Ozempic was incubated by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Institutes of Health. Microchips. Self-driving cars. MRIs. The flu shot. The list goes on and on.

In her 2013 book The Entrepreneurial State, Mariana Mazzucato, a leading economist studying innovation at University College London, found that every major technological transformation in the US, from electric cars to Google to the iPhone, can trace its roots back to basic science research once funded by the federal government. If the past offers any lesson, that means every major transformation in the future could be shortchanged with the destruction of that support.

The Trump administration’s distaste for regulation will arguably be a boon in the short term for some parts of the tech industry, including crypto and AI. But the federal workers said the president’s and Musk’s undermining of basic science research will hurt American innovation in the long run. “Rather than investing in the future, you’re burning through scientific capital,” an employee at the State Department said. “You can build off the things you already know, but you’re not learning anything new. Twenty years later, you fall behind because you stopped making new discoveries.”

A global currency

The government doesn’t just give money, either. It supports American science in numerous other ways, and the US reaps the returns. The Department of State helps attract the best students from around the world to American universities. Amid stagnating growth in the number of homegrown STEM PhD graduates, recruiting foreign students remains one of the strongest pathways for the US to expand its pool of technical talent, especially in strategic areas like batteries and semiconductors. Many of those students stay for years, if not the rest of their lives; even if they leave the country, they’ve already spent some of their most productive years in the US and will retain a wealth of professional connections with whom they’ll collaborate, thereby continuing to contribute to US science.

The State Department also establishes agreements between the US and other countries and helps broker partnerships between American and international universities. That helps scientists collaborate across borders on everything from global issues like climate change to research that requires equipment on opposite sides of the world, such as the measurement of gravitational waves.

The international development work of USAID in global health, poverty reduction, and conflict alleviation—now virtually shut down in its entirety—was designed to build up goodwill toward the US globally; it improved regional stability for decades. In addition to its inherent benefits, this allowed American scientists to safely access diverse geographies and populations, as well as plant and animal species not found in the US. Such international interchange played just as critical a role as government funding in many crucial inventions.

Several federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, also help collect and aggregate critical data on disease, health trends, air quality, weather, and more from disparate sources that feed into the work of scientists across the country.

The National Institutes of Health, for example, has since 2015 been running the Precision Medicine Initiative, the only effort of its kind to collect extensive and granular health data from over 1 million Americans who volunteer their medical records, genetic history, and even Fitbit data to help researchers understand health disparities and develop personalized and more effective treatments for disorders from heart and lung disease to cancer. The data set, which is too expensive for any one university to assemble and maintain, has already been used in hundreds of papers that will lay the foundation for the next generation of life-saving pharmaceuticals.

Beyond fueling innovation, a well-supported science and technology ecosystem bolsters US national security and global influence. When people want to study at American universities, attend international conferences hosted on American soil, or move to the US to work or to found their own companies, the US stays the center of global innovation activity. This ensures that the country continues to get access to the best people and ideas, and gives it an outsize role in setting global scientific practices and priorities. US research norms, including academic freedom and a robust peer review system, become global research norms that lift the overall quality of science. International agencies like the World Health Organization take significant cues from American guidance.

US scientific leadership has long been one of the country’s purest tools of soft power and diplomacy as well. Countries keen to learn from the American innovation ecosystem and to have access to American researchers and universities have been more prone to partner with the US and align with its strategic priorities.

Just one example: Science diplomacy has long played an important role in maintaining the US’s strong relationship with the Netherlands, which is home to ASML, the only company in the world that can produce the extreme ultraviolet lithography machines needed to produce the most advanced semiconductors. These are critical for both AI development and national security.

International science cooperation has also served as a stabilizing force in otherwise difficult relationships. During the Cold War, the US and USSR continued to collaborate on the International Space Station; during the recent heightened economic competition between the US and China, the countries have remained each other’s top scientific partners. “Actively working together to solve problems that we both care about helps maintain the connections and the context but also helps build respect,” Seligsohn says.

The federal government itself is a significant beneficiary of the country’s convening power for technical expertise. Among other things, experts both inside and outside the government support its sound policymaking in science and technology. During the US Senate AI Insight Forums, co-organized by Senator Chuck Schumer through the fall of 2023, for example, the Senate heard from more than 150 experts, many of whom were born abroad and studying at American universities, working at or advising American companies, or living permanently in the US as naturalized American citizens.

Federal scientists and technical experts at government agencies also work on wide-ranging goals critical to the US, including building resilience in the face of an increasingly erratic climate; researching strategic technologies such as next-generation battery technology to reduce the country’s reliance on minerals not found in the US; and monitoring global infectious diseases to prevent the next pandemic.

“Every issue that the US faces, there are people that are trying to do research on it and there are partnerships that have to happen,” the State Department employee said.

A system in jeopardy

Now the breadth and velocity of the Trump administration’s actions has led to an unprecedented assault on every pillar upholding American scientific leadership.

For starters, the purging of tens of thousands—and perhaps soon hundreds of thousands—of federal workers is removing scientists and technologists from the government and paralyzing the ability of critical agencies to function. Across multiple agencies, science and technology fellowship programs, designed to bring in talented early-career staff with advanced STEM degrees, have shuttered. Many other federal scientists were among the thousands who were terminated as probationary employees, a status they held because of the way scientific roles are often contractually structured.

Some agencies that were supporting or conducting their own research, including the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, are no longer functionally operational. USAID has effectively shuttered, eliminating a bastion of US expertise, influence, and credibility overnight.

“Diplomacy is built on relationships. If we’ve closed all these clinics and gotten rid of technical experts in our knowledge base inside the government, why would any foreign government have respect for the US in our ability to hold our word and in our ability to actually be knowledgeable?” a terminated USAID worker said. “I really hope America can save itself.”

Now the Trump administration has sought to reverse some terminations after discovering that many were key to national security, including nuclear safety employees responsible for designing, building, and maintaining the country’s nuclear weapons arsenal. But many federal workers I spoke to can no longer imagine staying in the public sector. Some are considering going into industry. Others are wondering whether it will be better to move abroad.

“It’s just such a waste of American talent,” said Fiona Coleman, a terminated federal scientist, her voice cracking with emotion as she described the long years of schooling and training she and her colleagues went through to serve the government.

Many fear the US has also singlehandedly kneecapped its own ability to attract talent from abroad. Over the last 10 years, even as American universities have continued to lead the world, many universities in other countries have rapidly leveled up. That includes those in Canada, where liberal immigration policies and lower tuition fees have driven a 200% increase in international student enrollment over the last decade, according to Anna Esaki-Smith, cofounder of a higher-education research consultancy called Education Rethink and author of Make College Your Superpower.

Germany has also seen an influx, thanks to a growing number of English-taught programs and strong connections between universities and German industry. Chinese students, who once represented the largest share of foreign students in the US, are increasingly staying at home or opting to study in places like Hong Kong, Singapore, and the UK.

During the first Trump administration, many international students were already more reluctant to come to the US because of the president’s hostile rhetoric. With the return and rapid escalation of that rhetoric, Esaki-Smith is hearing from some universities that international students are declining their admissions offers.

Add to that the other recent developments—the potential dramatic cuts in federal research funding, the deletion of scores of rich public data sets on health and the environment, the clampdown on academic freedom for research that appears related to diversity, equity, and inclusion and the fear that these restrictions could ultimately encompass other politically charged topics like climate change or vaccines—and many more international science and engineering students could decide to head elsewhere.

“I’ve been hearing this increasingly from several postdocs and early-career professors, fearing the cuts in NIH or NSF grants, that they’re starting to look for funding or job opportunities in other countries,” Coleman told me. “And then we’re going to be training up the US’s competitors.”

The attacks could similarly weaken the productivity of those who stay at American universities. While many of the Trump administration’s actions are now being halted and scrutinized by US judges, the chaos has weakened a critical prerequisite for tackling the toughest research problems: a long-term stable environment. With reports that the NSF is combing through research grants for words like “women,” “diverse,” and “institutional” to determine whether they violate President Trump’s executive order on DEIA programs, a chilling effect is also setting in among federally funded academics uncertain whether they’ll get caught in the dragnet.

To scientists abroad, the situation in the US government has marked American institutions and researchers as potentially unreliable partners, several federal workers told me. If international researchers think collaborations with the US can end at any moment when funds are abruptly pulled or certain topics or keywords are suddenly blacklisted, many of them could steer clear and look to other countries. “I’m really concerned about the instability we’re showing,” another employee at the State Department said. “What’s the point in even engaging? Because science is a long-term initiative and process that outlasts administrations and political cycles.”

Meanwhile, international scientists have far more options these days for high-caliber colleagues to collaborate with outside America. In recent years, for example, China has made a remarkable ascent to become a global peer in scientific discoveries. By some metrics, it has even surpassed the US; it started accounting for more of the top 1% of most-cited papers globally, often called the Nobel Prize tier, back in 2019 and has continued to improve the quality of the rest of its research.

Where Chinese universities can also entice international collaborators with substantial resources, the US is more limited in its ability to offer tangible funding, the State employee said. Until now, the US has maintained its advantage in part through the prestige of its institutions and its more open cultural norms, including stronger academic freedom. But several federal scientists warn that this advantage is dissipating.

“America is made up of so many different people contributing to it. There’s such a powerful global community that makes this country what it is, especially in science and technology and academia and research. We’re going to lose that; there’s not a chance in the world that we’re not going to lose that through stuff like this,” says Brigid Cakouros, a federal scientist who was also terminated from USAID. “I have no doubt that the international science community will ultimately be okay. It’ll just be a shame for the US to isolate themselves from it.”

Stay Ahead

Explore More Insights

Stay ahead with more perspectives on cutting-edge power, infrastructure, energy, bitcoin and AI solutions. Explore these articles to uncover strategies and insights shaping the future of industries.

Palo Alto updates security platform to discover AI agents

Recently, he said, there have been news reports that AI agents created by firms caused hacks within their own companies. He didn’t cite specific examples, but last week Meta said there had been a severe internal security breach after an autonomous AI agent exposed sensitive company and user data to

Cisco goes all in on agentic AI security

Other new ES features include: Detection Studio: A unified workspace for detection engineers to plan, develop, test, deploy, and monitor detections. By mapping coverage against the MITRE ATT&CK framework, teams can identify data gaps and validate detection quality in real time. Another new instrument, Malware Threat Reversing Agent, gives customers

Cisco Talos 2025 year in review and lessons learned

By compromising an ADC or a VPN, an attacker doesn’t just break in—they become a trusted user. This allows them to bypass Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), steal session tokens, and move laterally across the entire network undetected. Compounding this risk is the fact that nearly 40% of top-targeted vulnerabilities in 2025

ADNOC, OMV advance formation of Borouge Group International

ADNOC and OMV Aktiengesellschaft signed an asset usage agreement for the Borouge 4 (B4) production complex, advancing the duo’s formation of Borouge Group International AG. The formation of Borouge Group International AG, through the combination of Borouge Plc and Borealis, and acquisition of Nova Chemicals, is progressing according to plan,

Trump Administration Keeps Indiana Coal Plants Open to Ensure Affordable, Reliable and Secure Power in the Midwest

Emergency orders address critical grid reliability issues, lowering risk of blackouts and ensuring affordable electricity access WASHINGTON—U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright today issued emergency orders to keep two Indiana coal plants operational to ensure Americans in the Midwest region of the United States have continued access to affordable, reliable, and secure electricity. The orders direct the Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO), CenterPoint Energy, and the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc. (MISO) to take all measures necessary to ensure specified generation units at both the R.M. Schahfer and F.B. Culley generating stations in Indiana are available to operate. Certain generation units at the coal plants were scheduled to shut down at the end of 2025. The orders prioritize minimizing electricity costs for the American people and minimizing the risk and costs of blackouts. “The last administration’s energy subtraction policies had the United States on track to likely experience significantly more blackouts in the coming years—thankfully, President Trump won’t let that happen,” said Energy Secretary Wright. “The Trump Administration will continue taking action to keep America’s coal plants running to ensure we don’t lose critical generation sources. Americans deserve access to affordable, reliable, and secure energy to power their homes all the time, regardless of whether the wind is blowing or the sun is shining.” The reliable supply of power from these two coal plants was essential in powering the grid during recent extreme winter weather. From January 23–February 1, Schahfer operated at over 285 megawatts (MW) every day and Culley operated at approximately 30 MW almost every day. These operations serve as a reminder that allowing reliable generation to go offline would unnecessarily contribute to grid reliability risks. Since the Department of Energy’s (DOE) original orders were issued on December 23, 2025, the coal plants have proven critical to MISO’s operations, operating during periods of high energy demand and low levels of intermittent

Energy Department Begins Delivering SPR Barrels at Record Speeds

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the award of contracts for the initial phase of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) Emergency Exchange as directed by President Trump. The first oil shipments began today—just nine days after President Trump and the Department of Energy announced the United States would lead a coordinated release of emergency oil reserves among International Energy Agency (IEA) member nations to address short-term supply disruptions. Under these initial awards, DOE will move forward with an exchange of 45.2 million barrels of crude oil and receive 55 million barrels in return, all at no cost to the taxpayer. This represents the first tranche of the United States’ 172-million-barrel release. Companies will receive 10 million barrels from the Bayou Choctaw SPR site, 15.7 million barrels from Bryan Mound, and 19.5 million barrels from West Hackberry. “Thanks to President Trump, the Energy Department began this first exchange at record speeds to address short-term supply disruptions while also strengthening the Strategic Petroleum Reserve by returning additional barrels at no cost to taxpayers,” said Kyle Haustveit, Assistant Secretary of the Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office. “This exchange not only maintains reliability in the current market but will generate hundreds of millions of dollars in value in the form of additional barrels for the American people when the barrels are returned.” This initial action will ultimately add close to 10 million barrels to the SPR’s inventory when the barrels are returned. Taxpayers will benefit from both the short-term support for global supply and long-term growth of the SPR’s inventory. This helps protects U.S. and global energy security. The Trump Administration continues to pursue additional opportunities to strengthen the reserve and restore its long-term readiness as a cornerstone of American energy security. For more information on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and DOE’s

Then & Now: Oil prices, US shale, offshore, and AI—Deborah Byers on what changed since 2017

In this Then & Now episode of the Oil & Gas Journal ReEnterprised podcast, Managing Editor and Content Strategist Mikaila Adams reconnects with Deborah Byers, nonresident fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute Center for Energy Studies and former EY Americas industry leader, to revisit a set of questions first posed in 2017. In 2017, the industry was emerging from a downturn and recalibrating strategy; today, it faces heightened geopolitical risk, market volatility, and a rapidly evolving technology landscape. The conversation examines how those earlier perspectives have aged—covering oil price bands and the speed of recovery from geopolitical shocks, the role of US shale relative to OPEC in balancing global supply, and the shift from scarcity to economic abundance driven by technology and capital discipline. Adams and Byers also compare the economics and risk profiles of shale and offshore development, including the growing role of Brazil, Guyana, and the Gulf of Mexico, and discuss how infrastructure and regulatory constraints shape market outcomes. The episode further explores where digital transformation—particularly artificial intelligence—is delivering tangible returns across upstream operations, from predictive maintenance and workforce planning to capital project execution. The discussion concludes with insights on consolidation and scale in the Permian basin, the strategic rationale behind recent megamergers, and the industry’s ongoing challenge to attract and retain next‑generation talent through flexibility, technical opportunity, and purpose‑driven work.

Eni plans tieback of new gas discoveries offshore Libya

Eni North Africa, a unit of Eni SPA, together with Libya’s National Oil Corp., plans to develop two new gas discoveries offshore Libya as tiebacks to existing infrastructure. The gas discoveries were made offshore Libya, about 85 km off the coast in about 650 ft of water. Bahr Essalam South 2 (BESS 2) and Bahr Essalam South 3 (BESS 3), adjacent geological structures, were successfully drilled through the exploration well C1-16/4 and the appraisal well B2-16/4 about 16 km south of Bahr Essalam gas field, which lies about 110 km from the Tripoli coast. Gas-bearing intervals were encountered in both wells within the Metlaoui formation, the main productive reservoir of the area. The acquired data indicate the presence of a high-quality reservoir, with productive capacity confirmed by the well test already carried out on the first well. Preliminary volumetric estimates indicate that the BESS 2 and BESS 3 structures jointly contain more than 1 tcf of gas in place. Their proximity to Bahr Essalam field will enable rapid development through tie-back, the operator said. The gas produced will be supplied to the Libyan domestic market and for export to Italy. Bahr Essalam produces through the Sabratha platform to the Mellitah onshore treatment plant.

Azule Energy launches first non-associated gas production offshore Angola

Azule Energy has started natural gas production from the New Gas Consortium (NGC)’s Quiluma shallow water field offshore Angola. Start-up of the gas delivery from Quiluma field follows the November 2025 introduction of gas into the onshore gas plant, marking the beginning of production operations. The initial gas export will be 150 MMscfd and will ramp up to 330 MMscfd by yearend, the operator said in a release Mar. 13. In a separate release Mar. 17, NGC partner TotalEnergies said the startup marks the first development of a non-associated gas field in Angola, noting that the gas produced “will be a stable and important source of gas supply for the Angola LNG plant that is delivering LNG to both the European and Asian markets.” The non-associated gas of NGC Phase 1 will come from Quiluma and Maboqueiro shallow water fields with additional potential related to gas from Blocks 2, 3, and 15/14 areas. An onshore plant will process gas from the fields and connect to the Angola LNG plant, aimed at a reliable feedstock supply to the plant, sited near Soyo in the Zaire province in north Angola. The plant holds a capacity of 400MMscfd of gas and 20,000 b/d of condensates. Azule Energy, a 50-50 joint venture between bp and Eni, is operator of NGC project with 37.4% interest. Partners are TotalEnergies (11.8%), Cabinda Gulf Oil Co., a subsidiary of Chevron (31%), and Sonangol E&P (19.8%).

Equinor eyes Barents Sea oil province expansion with potential oil discovery tieback

Equinor Energy AS and partners will consider a tie back of a new oil discovery to Johan Castberg field in the Barents Sea, 220 km northwest of Hammerfest. Preliminary discovery volume estimates at the in the Polynya Tubåen prospect are 2.3–3.8 million std cu m of recoverable oil equivalent (14–24 MMboe). Wildcat well 7220/7-5, the 17th exploration well in production license 532, was drilled about 16 km southwest of discovery well 7220/8-1 well by the COSL Prospector rig in 361 m of water, according to the Norwegian Offshore Directorate. The well was drilled to a vertical depth of 1,119 m subsea. It was terminated in the Fruholmen formation from the Upper Triassic. The objective was to prove petroleum in Lower Jurassic reservoir rocks in the Tubåen formation. The well encountered a 26-m gas column and a 26-m oil column in the Tubåen formation in reservoir rocks totaling 39 m, with good to very good reservoir quality. The total thickness in the Tubåen formation is 125 m. The gas-oil contact was encountered at 972 m subsea, and the oil-water contact was encountered at 998 m subsea. The well was not formation-tested, but extensive volumes of data and samples were collected. It will now be permanently plugged. ‘New’ Barents Sea oil province The discovery comes as Equinor aims to increase volumes in the Johan Castberg area—originally estimated at 500–700 million bbl—by an additional 200–500 million bbl, with plans to drill 1-2 exploration wells per year in the region, Equinor said. “With Johan Castberg, we opened a new oil province in the Barents Sea one year ago. It is encouraging that we are now making new discoveries in the area,” said Grete Birgitte Haaland, area director for Exploration and Production North at Equinor. Production at Johan Castberg began in 2025. In June 2025, the Drivis

Executive Roundtable: AI Infrastructure Enters Its Execution Era

Miranda Gardiner, iMasons Climate Accord: Since 2023, the digital infrastructure industry has moved definitively from planning to execution in the AI infrastructure cycle. Industry analysts forecast continued exponential growth, with active capacity at least doubling between now and 2030 and total capacity potentially tripling, quintupling, or more. In practical terms, we’ll see more digital infrastructure capacity come online in the next five year than has been built in the past 30 years, representing a historic industrial transformation requiring trillions of dollars in capital expenditure and a workforce measured in the millions. Design and organizational flexibility, integrated execution of sustainable solutions, and community-centered workforce development will separate those that thrive from those that struggle. Effective organizations will pivot quickly under these constantly shifting conditions and the leaders will be those that build fast but build right, as strategic flexibility balances long-term performance, efficiency, and regulatory compliance. We already know the resource intensity required to bring AI resources online and are working diligently to ensure this short-term, delivering streamlined and optimized solutions for everything from site selection to cooling and power management while lower lifecycle emissions. Additionally, in some regions, grid interconnection timelines and power availability are already the pacing item for data center development. Organizations that align their sustainability targets and energy procurement strategies will have a clearer path to execution. An operational model capable of delivering multiple large-scale facilities simultaneously across regions is another key piece to successful outcomes. Standardized, repeatable frameworks that reduce engineering time and accelerate permitting. We hear often about collaboration and strong partnerships, and these will be critical with utilities, regulators, and equipment manufacturers to anticipate bottlenecks before they impact schedules. Execution discipline will increasingly determine competitive advantage as the industry scales. The world and, especially, our host communities, are watching closely. Projects that move forward

Jensen Huang Maps the AI Factory Era at NVIDIA GTC 2026

SAN JOSE, Calif. — If there was a single message that emerged from Jensen Huang’s keynote at Nvidia’s GTC conference this week, it was this: the artificial intelligence revolution is entering its infrastructure phase. For the past several years, the technology industry has been preoccupied with training ever larger models. But in Huang’s telling, that era is already giving way to something far bigger: the industrial-scale deployment of AI systems that run continuously, generating intelligence on demand. “The inference inflection point has arrived,” Huang told the audience gathered at the SAP Center. That shift carries enormous implications for the data center industry. Instead of episodic bursts of compute used to train models, the next generation of AI systems will require persistent, high-throughput infrastructure designed to serve billions, and eventually trillions, of inference requests every day. And the scale of the buildout Huang envisions is staggering. Throughout the keynote, the Nvidia CEO repeatedly referenced what he believes will become a trillion-dollar global market for AI infrastructure in the coming years, spanning accelerated computing systems, networking fabrics, storage architectures, power systems, and the facilities required to house them. At that scale, Huang argued, data centers are no longer simply IT facilities. They are truly becoming AI factories: industrial systems designed to convert electricity into tokens. “Tokens are the new commodity,” Huang said. “AI factories are the infrastructure that produces them.” Across more than two hours on stage, Huang sketched the architecture of that new computing platform, introducing new computing systems, networking technologies, software frameworks, and infrastructure blueprints designed to support what Nvidia believes will be the largest computing buildout in history. Four main themes defined the presentation: • The arrival of the inference inflection point.• The emergence of OpenClaw as a foundational operating layer for AI agents.• New hybrid inference architectures involving

Executive Roundtable: The Coordination Imperative

Christopher Gorthy, DPR Construction: Early collaboration of key stakeholders has become the baseline to deliver these complex projects. The teams that are successful in these environments are the ones who combine effective meeting structures with enough in‑person interaction to build real trust. Pairing those relationships with the right tools can help track key decision making, document reasoning, and keep everyone aligned on “The Why,” creating more predictable outcomes. Where the industry continues to feel fragmented is around liability, risk, and comfort with sharing design and model data. Achieving the speed these projects demand requires the entire team to understand each partner’s constraints and then working together to solve problems, communicating clearly and documenting decisions as they go. All of our partnerships are solving equations with multiple variables. Our teams must provide early feedback and solutions when faced with impacts or delays outside our control, and even earlier communications of impacts that cannot be mitigated. Open communication channels, whether through shared digital platforms or recurring working sessions, are critical to staying ahead of risk. As projects get bigger, alignment with financial institutions, insurance entities and private equity partners also have become essential. The number of trade partners capable of taking on contracts of this size is limited, so making sure we are setting up our partners for success while also working to expand the network of qualified trade partners is a key strategy. From a tactical standpoint, the most effective projects operate from a single integrated schedule that ties together the owner, vendors, general contractor, trades, commissioning teams, and all other stakeholders. Reinforcing this with consistent two‑ to three‑week look‑ahead reviews and onsite schedule coordination meetings regardless of contractual structure significantly increases alignment and efficiency at the project level.

Jensen Huang After the Keynote: Inside Nvidia’s GTC 2026 Press Briefing

The Data Center as Token Factory If there was one line of thinking that defined the session, it was Huang’s insistence that the industry must stop thinking about computers as systems for data entry and retrieval. That, he said, is the old paradigm. The new one is a “token manufacturing system.” That phrase landed because it compresses a lot of Nvidia’s strategy into a single mental model. In this view, the modern data center is no longer just a warehouse of servers or a cloud abstraction layer. It is a factory, and the unit of output is increasingly the token. For Data Center Frontier readers, this is a familiar direction of travel, but Huang pushed it further than most CEOs do. He repeatedly tied Nvidia’s roadmap to token throughput, token economics, and performance per watt. He is clearly trying to establish a new baseline metric for AI infrastructure value. Not raw capacity, but how much useful intelligence a facility can produce from a fixed power envelope. That point also surfaced in his discussion of Grace and Vera CPUs. Huang’s argument was not that Nvidia intends to win every classical CPU market. It was that traditional measures such as cores per dollar are insufficient in AI data centers where the real economic risk is leaving extremely valuable GPUs idle. In other words, the CPU matters because it must move work fast enough to keep the GPU estate productive. In a power-limited, AI-heavy environment, the purpose of the CPU changes. It is no longer optimized for the old hyperscale rental model. It is optimized for keeping the token factory fed. That is a subtle but major shift. It suggests that the next-generation AI data center will be increasingly engineered around the productivity of the overall system rather than around legacy component economics.

Project Stalled: Grid Bottlenecks Threaten the Fifth Industrial Revolution

The defining feature of our current data center cycle isn’t a shortage of customers or capital; it’s a shortage of power that can actually be delivered on time. In the space of three years, large‑load interconnection queues have gone from a planning tool to the main reason otherwise viable AI campuses are missing their deployment windows. Multi‑year delays for large loads are quickly becoming the norm, not the exception, in major markets, turning what should be a sprint to deploy AI into a long and uncertain wait. At the grid level, the same pattern is visible in the queues. Across U.S. markets, that queuing infrastructure is now a primary source of delay. Regional operators from PJM to ERCOT and NYISO report steep increases in both the number and size of large‑load requests, with data centers and other energy‑intensive digital infrastructure accounting for a growing share of new demand ( https://insidelines.pjm.com/pjm-board-outlines-plans-to-integrate-large-loads-reliably/, https://www.nyiso.com/-/energy-intensive-projects-in-nyiso-s-interconnection-queue/, https://www.latitudemedia.com/news/ercots-large-load-queue-has-nearly-quadrupled-in-a-single-year/). In practice, that means more projects are being told that meaningful capacity will not be available on the timeline their customers expect, forcing them into redesigns, phased power ramps, or alternative power strategies. Time, in other words, has become the scarcest resource in the data center economy. The same 60 MW AI facility that looks attractive at a 17.1% IRR when delivered on schedule can see its returns fall to 12.6% with a three‑month delay and to 8.8% with a six‑month delay—nearly halving its investment case ( https://www.thefastmode.com/expert-opinion/47210-what-we-learned-in-2025-about-data-center-builds-why-delays-will-persist-in-2026-without-greater-visibility). That is why, in this industrial revolution, the metric that matters most is speed‑to‑power: how quickly real, reliable megawatts can be made available at the fence line, not how many gigawatts exist on slides or in press releases. In this industrial revolution, that metric will do more to determine who wins than any short‑term race to buy chips or secure logos.

Roundtable: Designing for an Uncertain AI Demand Curve

For the third installment of our Executive Roundtable for the First Quarter of 2026, Data Center Frontier examines a question at the heart of AI infrastructure strategy: How to design for a demand curve that refuses to sit still. The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence workloads has introduced a new kind of uncertainty into data center development. Training clusters continue to scale, inference workloads are proliferating, and enterprise adoption is accelerating in ways that challenge even the most aggressive forecasts. Yet beneath that growth lies a fundamental ambiguity. Not just how much capacity will be needed, but when, where, and in what form. For developers and operators, this creates a tension between speed and flexibility. The pressure to deliver capacity quickly has never been greater, as hyperscale and neocloud players race to secure power and bring AI infrastructure online. At the same time, the risk of overbuilding (or locking into infrastructure that may not align with future workloads, densities, or architectures) has become increasingly difficult to ignore. Nowhere is this tension more visible than in power and electrical design. Decisions around substation sizing, transmission commitments, switchgear capacity, and on-site generation are being made years in advance of fully understood demand profiles. These choices carry long-term consequences, shaping not only capital efficiency but the ability to adapt as AI technologies and use cases continue to evolve. The result is a shift in design philosophy. Increasingly, the industry is moving away from static, one-time provisioning toward architectures that prioritize modularity, scalability, and optionality, seeking to preserve flexibility without sacrificing near-term delivery. In this roundtable, our panel explores how developers, operators, and suppliers are navigating that balance, and what it will take to future-proof AI infrastructure in an era defined by both unprecedented growth and persistent uncertainty.

Microsoft will invest $80B in AI data centers in fiscal 2025

And Microsoft isn’t the only one that is ramping up its investments into AI-enabled data centers. Rival cloud service providers are all investing in either upgrading or opening new data centers to capture a larger chunk of business from developers and users of large language models (LLMs). In a report published in October 2024, Bloomberg Intelligence estimated that demand for generative AI would push Microsoft, AWS, Google, Oracle, Meta, and Apple would between them devote $200 billion to capex in 2025, up from $110 billion in 2023. Microsoft is one of the biggest spenders, followed closely by Google and AWS, Bloomberg Intelligence said. Its estimate of Microsoft’s capital spending on AI, at $62.4 billion for calendar 2025, is lower than Smith’s claim that the company will invest $80 billion in the fiscal year to June 30, 2025. Both figures, though, are way higher than Microsoft’s 2020 capital expenditure of “just” $17.6 billion. The majority of the increased spending is tied to cloud services and the expansion of AI infrastructure needed to provide compute capacity for OpenAI workloads. Separately, last October Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said his company planned total capex spend of $75 billion in 2024 and even more in 2025, with much of it going to AWS, its cloud computing division.

John Deere unveils more autonomous farm machines to address skill labor shortage

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Self-driving tractors might be the path to self-driving cars. John Deere has revealed a new line of autonomous machines and tech across agriculture, construction and commercial landscaping. The Moline, Illinois-based John Deere has been in business for 187 years, yet it’s been a regular as a non-tech company showing off technology at the big tech trade show in Las Vegas and is back at CES 2025 with more autonomous tractors and other vehicles. This is not something we usually cover, but John Deere has a lot of data that is interesting in the big picture of tech. The message from the company is that there aren’t enough skilled farm laborers to do the work that its customers need. It’s been a challenge for most of the last two decades, said Jahmy Hindman, CTO at John Deere, in a briefing. Much of the tech will come this fall and after that. He noted that the average farmer in the U.S. is over 58 and works 12 to 18 hours a day to grow food for us. And he said the American Farm Bureau Federation estimates there are roughly 2.4 million farm jobs that need to be filled annually; and the agricultural work force continues to shrink. (This is my hint to the anti-immigration crowd). John Deere’s autonomous 9RX Tractor. Farmers can oversee it using an app. While each of these industries experiences their own set of challenges, a commonality across all is skilled labor availability. In construction, about 80% percent of contractors struggle to find skilled labor. And in commercial landscaping, 86% of landscaping business owners can’t find labor to fill open positions, he said. “They have to figure out how to do

2025 playbook for enterprise AI success, from agents to evals

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More 2025 is poised to be a pivotal year for enterprise AI. The past year has seen rapid innovation, and this year will see the same. This has made it more critical than ever to revisit your AI strategy to stay competitive and create value for your customers. From scaling AI agents to optimizing costs, here are the five critical areas enterprises should prioritize for their AI strategy this year. 1. Agents: the next generation of automation AI agents are no longer theoretical. In 2025, they’re indispensable tools for enterprises looking to streamline operations and enhance customer interactions. Unlike traditional software, agents powered by large language models (LLMs) can make nuanced decisions, navigate complex multi-step tasks, and integrate seamlessly with tools and APIs. At the start of 2024, agents were not ready for prime time, making frustrating mistakes like hallucinating URLs. They started getting better as frontier large language models themselves improved. “Let me put it this way,” said Sam Witteveen, cofounder of Red Dragon, a company that develops agents for companies, and that recently reviewed the 48 agents it built last year. “Interestingly, the ones that we built at the start of the year, a lot of those worked way better at the end of the year just because the models got better.” Witteveen shared this in the video podcast we filmed to discuss these five big trends in detail. Models are getting better and hallucinating less, and they’re also being trained to do agentic tasks. Another feature that the model providers are researching is a way to use the LLM as a judge, and as models get cheaper (something we’ll cover below), companies can use three or more models to

OpenAI’s red teaming innovations define new essentials for security leaders in the AI era

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More OpenAI has taken a more aggressive approach to red teaming than its AI competitors, demonstrating its security teams’ advanced capabilities in two areas: multi-step reinforcement and external red teaming. OpenAI recently released two papers that set a new competitive standard for improving the quality, reliability and safety of AI models in these two techniques and more. The first paper, “OpenAI’s Approach to External Red Teaming for AI Models and Systems,” reports that specialized teams outside the company have proven effective in uncovering vulnerabilities that might otherwise have made it into a released model because in-house testing techniques may have missed them. In the second paper, “Diverse and Effective Red Teaming with Auto-Generated Rewards and Multi-Step Reinforcement Learning,” OpenAI introduces an automated framework that relies on iterative reinforcement learning to generate a broad spectrum of novel, wide-ranging attacks. Going all-in on red teaming pays practical, competitive dividends It’s encouraging to see competitive intensity in red teaming growing among AI companies. When Anthropic released its AI red team guidelines in June of last year, it joined AI providers including Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, and even the U.S.’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which all had released red teaming frameworks. Investing heavily in red teaming yields tangible benefits for security leaders in any organization. OpenAI’s paper on external red teaming provides a detailed analysis of how the company strives to create specialized external teams that include cybersecurity and subject matter experts. The goal is to see if knowledgeable external teams can defeat models’ security perimeters and find gaps in their security, biases and controls that prompt-based testing couldn’t find. What makes OpenAI’s recent papers noteworthy is how well they define using human-in-the-middle

Stay Ahead, Stay ONMINE