The White House released its National Security Science and Technology Strategy (NSSTS) in August 2026, establishing a comprehensive framework for leveraging American science and technology capabilities to support national security objectives. The strategy, submitted by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), directly implements requirements under the CHIPS and Science Act and aligns with the 2025 National Security Strategy. The NSSTS identifies four core pillars to guide U.S. technology competition and development: focusing techno-strategic competition, building technological resilience, accelerating innovation pace, and protecting national security science and technology from foreign threats.
Focusing Technology Competition The strategy prioritizes maintaining U.S. technological advantage across critical military domains. Key focus areas include undersea superiority—emphasizing submarine survivability and anti-submarine warfare—space domain supremacy including cislunar space capabilities, and competitive advantage in artificial intelligence and autonomy for military applications. Additional priorities encompass air superiority through stealth and electronic warfare, long-range strike capabilities, command and control systems (C5ISR), and information dominance.
Enabling technologies critical to battlefield dominance include advanced manufacturing and materials, AI and autonomy, communications and networking, directed energy systems, future computing technologies, hypersonics, semiconductors and microelectronics, nuclear energy, positioning and navigation systems, and space technologies. The strategy emphasizes shaping technology competition toward areas where American strengths provide durable advantages, avoiding forms of competition that would favor adversaries through cost imposition strategies. Building Technological Resilience The NSSTS stresses the importance of reducing overreliance on vulnerable supply chains and technologies.
This includes anticipating emerging national security challenges, leading in transformative technologies where implications remain uncertain—particularly artificial intelligence and autonomy approaching artificial general intelligence, biotechnology with implications for human health and performance, and quantum information technologies with potential breakthroughs in sensing, communications, and computing. The strategy calls for modernizing critical infrastructure vulnerable to attack, including aging systems integral to national security. Opportunities include improving energy resilience through advanced nuclear microgrids, utilizing advanced weather forecasting to enhance infrastructure resilience, operationalizing AI-enabled biosurveillance for bioattacks, leveraging biomanufacturing to onshore critical supply chains, and modernizing cryptography and cyber infrastructure.
The strategy emphasizes optimal redundancy across critical architectures—achieving through separation in space, time, or technology—to ensure adversaries must solve multiple technical problems simultaneously to inflict grave harm. The U.S. will prioritize homeshoring and domestic product development, promoting balanced trade, facilitating reindustrialization, unleashing energy dominance, and advancing novel material substitution for critical components. Relevant authorities will protect against adversary exploitation of critical technology systems and supply chains, including communications and networking systems.
The Federal Communications Commission's Covered List, the Bureau of Industry and Security's Information and Communications Technology Program, and the Federal Acquisition Security Council represent key protective mechanisms. Coordination with ally and partner governments through technology prosperity deals will amplify U.S. protection efforts. Accelerating Innovation The strategy calls for making the science and technology enterprise more agile through incentivizing private sector and academic innovation, removing administrative and regulatory burdens, and accelerating acquisition reform.
Agencies should develop rapid R&D funding mechanisms for critical and emerging technology areas, issue short-turnaround innovation competitions, and reward private and academic participants delivering solutions meeting priority mission needs. Federal researchers should be incentivized to understand national security mission needs through increased engagement with policy communities and national security operators at classified levels where appropriate. The strategy directs streamlining patent processes, strengthening commercialization pathways, establishing internal competitions rewarding solution development, and enabling high-performing researchers to allocate time toward national security innovation.
Acquisition reform represents a central focus, with President Trump's Executive Orders 14265 on Modernizing Defense Acquisitions, 14369 on Ensuring American Space Superiority, and 14383 on America First Arms Transfer Strategy providing direction to accelerate development and acquisition cycles. Agencies should utilize Other Transaction Authorities where appropriate for research, prototype, and production projects, employ milestone-based fixed-cost contracting with competing participants, and explore mixed contract mechanisms balancing risk and reward. Protecting National Security Science and Technology The strategy emphasizes protecting the S&T ecosystem from foreign theft, diversion, and exploitation.
Research security strengthening includes building threat awareness within research communities and ensuring full disclosure of potential conflicts of interest and conflicts of commitment by participants with significant influence on the U.S. R&D enterprise. Key research security measures include establishing processes to track direct and indirect recipients of Federal research funding, prohibiting fundamental research funding to high-risk entities including Chinese military companies operating in the United States, creating risk-based review criteria and information repositories enhancing agency efficiency, reducing reporting burdens through universal forms, developing automated research security vetting and continuous monitoring where appropriate, bolstering counter-intelligence support to research centers, and establishing cybersecurity guidelines for researchers and institutions.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) will be modernized and strengthened to ensure foreign investment in U.S. technology does not harm national security. The Trump Administration's America First Investment Policy will resource CFIUS to address the full range of foreign investment risks, monitor certain high-risk greenfield investments, and expand critical technology jurisdiction. CFIUS should proportionally focus or ease restrictions based on an investor's verifiable distance from malign practices of foreign adversaries, while facilitating and expediting investment from allied and partner sources avoiding adversary partnerships.
The Administration is implementing the Outbound Investment Security Program, cemented through the Comprehensive Outbound Investment National Security Act of 2025, to prevent U.S. persons from investing in foreign adversaries' military industrial sectors. Treasury and relevant agencies will continually evaluate Outbound restrictions on investments in AI, quantum information systems, semiconductors, supercomputers, and hypersonics, while expanding restrictions encompassing additional areas implicated by China's military-civil fusion strategy. Export controls will be updated to keep pace with emerging risks and evolving technologies while eliminating outdated controls.
The Bureau of Industry and Security issued an interim final rule in January 2026 streamlining drone export controls to allies and partners maintaining strong export control regimes. Additional reforms to Missile Technology Control Regime implementation may enable increased close ally and partner contributions while maintaining protections. The Data Security Program, established in May 2025, will protect government-related data and bulk genomic, geolocation, biometric, health, financial, and other sensitive personal data of Americans against foreign adversary access and exploitation.
Implementation Through Workforce and Infrastructure The strategy identifies America's science and technology workforce and infrastructure as primary implementation means. Strengthening education and training in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics at all levels is essential, including expanding Advanced Placement courses and incorporating age-appropriate critical and emerging technology concepts into general science education and teacher development. The U.S. will increase skilled trades and technician pathways through Registered Apprenticeships, co-ops, and internships in AI infrastructure and microelectronics.
Educational institutions, including community colleges, should partner with industry to create certifications, credentialing, and competency models for emerging fields including AI infrastructure, quantum, biotechnology, and advanced nuclear reactor construction and operation. Higher education should evolve curricula to broaden exposure to quantum information science and emerging fields, enhance AI fluency across science and technology fields, support Federal programs encouraging STEM careers, and increase targeted scholarships and fellowships in designated critical and emerging technology areas. Scholarship-for-service programs will increase expertise both within academia and the Federal Government.
The United States will attract and retain top-tier global talent in critical national security science and technology fields through direct Federal hiring, fellowship programs, internship and externship programs, qualified job requirement review, and the Intergovernmental Personnel Act mobility program enabling temporary non-Federal expert assignment to Federal agencies. Security clearance review acceleration for Federal and non-Federal workforce members will expedite expert contribution to national security missions. Critical and Emerging Technologies The strategy updates the OSTP list of critical and emerging technologies relevant to U.S. national security.
These include advanced manufacturing and materials, AI and autonomy, biotechnology, communications and networking, directed energy, future computing technologies, hypersonics and advanced missile technologies, information management and cybersecurity, nuclear energy, positioning navigation and timing, quantum information technologies, semiconductors and microelectronics, sensing and signature management, and space technologies. Advanced manufacturing and materials covers advanced additive manufacturing for metals and ceramics, smart manufacturing using digital threads and digital twins, nanomanufacturing, materials designed using AI, high entropy alloys, advanced composites and lightweight metals, and materials with novel properties including biomaterials and substitutes for rare-earth and critical minerals-based alloys using earth-abundant minerals. Artificial intelligence and autonomy encompasses perception and recognition, planning and reasoning, robotics and embodied intelligence, foundation models including large language and multimodal systems, multi-agent and swarm intelligence, autonomous systems across surface air maritime space and cyber domains, autonomous command and control, interpretability and control, adversarial robustness and AI security, and distributed privacy-preserving machine learning.
Biotechnology includes novel synthetic biology, nucleic acid synthesis, genome and epigenome engineering, protein design and engineering, computational modeling, sub-cellular and multicellular systems engineering, novel therapeutic design and manufacturing, biotic and abiotic interfaces, biomanufacturing and bioprocessing technologies, and neurotechnologies. Communications and networking covers future generation wireless networks, optical links and fiber technologies, spectrum access technologies, software-defined networking and radios, modern data exchange techniques, adaptive network controls, and resilient path-diverse communications including delay-tolerant and infrastructure-independent networking. Directed energy includes lasers, high-power microwaves, and particle beams.
Future computing technologies encompasses advanced and next-generation computing architectures, photonic and neuromorphic computing modalities, high-performance supercomputing for AI applications, edge computing for tactical environments, brain-computer interfaces, hardened operating systems, and advanced spatial computing. Hypersonics and advanced missile technologies cover propulsion, aerodynamics and control, materials structures and manufacturing, testing, and detection tracking characterization and defense. Information management and cybersecurity includes data management and security, AI-enabled autonomous cyber capabilities, distributed ledger technologies, digital identity technologies and biometrics, computing supply chain security, communications network and cyber-physical systems security, post-quantum cryptography, and operational technology industrial control system security.
Nuclear energy encompasses advanced fission reactors, fusion energy, space nuclear power and propulsion systems, and high-temperature radiation resistant materials. Positioning navigation and timing includes diversified PNT-enabling technologies for airborne space-based terrestrial subterranean and underwater settings, interference and jamming detection, disruption-resisting technologies, and chip-scale frequency standards and atomic clocks. Quantum information technologies covers quantum computing, sensing, communications and networking, and enabling components algorithms materials and fabrication techniques.
Semiconductors and microelectronics includes design automation tools, advanced manufacturing process technologies, beyond-CMOS technology, heterogeneous integration and advanced packaging, specialized hardware components for AI applications and critical environments, novel materials including two-dimensional materials, and microelectromechanical and nanoelectromechanical systems. Sensing and signature management encompasses advanced sensors and sensor systems, data processing and fusion, adaptive optics, and detection and characterization of pathogens and chemical biological radiological and nuclear weapons. Space technologies include cost-effective on-demand and reusable space launch, advanced space vehicle power generation and propulsion, space vehicle thermal management, cislunar space access and use, in-space aggregation and assembly, biotechnologies for space applications, and crewed spaceflight enablers.
Ally and Partner Cooperation The strategy emphasizes leveraging science and technology capabilities of international allies and partners as a force multiplier for national security objectives. Under bilateral technology prosperity deals, the Trump Administration is expanding cooperation in critical and emerging technology areas including AI, nuclear energy, quantum, advanced communications, positioning navigation and timing, and space. Cooperation also encompasses research security, investment security, and supply chain security protective elements.
The United States is working with Australia and the United Kingdom to expand cooperation in critical and emerging technology areas, critical minerals and energy projects, and strengthening the U.S. submarine industrial base. A balanced approach to export control and foreign military sales will protect against proliferation to potential adversaries while enabling U.S. allies and partners to contribute meaningfully to collective defense and their own security. Source: National Security Science and Technology Strategy, August 2026, whitehouse.gov
Source: whitehouse.gov