Innovation Files Blog

Recent changes to science and immigration policy are making scientists reconsider building their careers in the United States. To preserve America’s competitive advantage, policymakers should ensure stable federal research funding, protect merit-based peer review, and modernize high-skill immigration policy.

Misleading interpretations of federal data have fueled claims that economic gains are increasingly flowing to shareholders. But when evaluating who benefits from economic growth, wages and salaries are only one component of national income.

Last year, the North American warehouse industry purchased more than 36,700 robots, the largest amount since 2022.

The United States is becoming less productive in manufacturing, even as productivity rises across nontraded sectors. To maintain U.S. industrial leadership, policymakers should incentivize manufacturers to adopt productivity-enhancing technologies.

Chinese EV exports have boomed amid increasing global gas prices, with demand rising 120 percent in the first half of 2026 compared to the same period last year.

Facial recognition has legitimate workplace uses, including identity verification and safety, that blanket restrictions could undermine. Policymakers should regulate how employers use biometric data rather than restrict the technologies that collect it.

Major agreements, new participants, and key diplomatic and industrial milestones in the U.S.-led Pax Silica initiative, which aims to secure global supply chains that underpin AI and other advanced technologies.

China is not only investing more in innovation but also becoming better at turning those investments into technologies with commercial potential. To maintain its technological leadership, the United States should strengthen its entire innovation pipeline, from research to commercialization.

Arbitrary funding cuts and increased political involvement in grantmaking will further weaken an already less productive U.S. science system. Policymakers should pursue reforms that enable researchers to generate more breakthroughs and strengthen U.S. competitiveness.

Just four percent of Chinese critical technology patents were filed by state-owned enterprises or the government, while more than half were filed by private firms. Another 27 percent were filed by universities. In comparison, only 3.3 percent of all critical technology patents in the United States were filed by universities.