Commentary
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Setting the Policy Agenda on Innovation Issues
- Alongside our in-depth policy reports, ITIF’s long-running Innovation Files blog serves as a forum where analysts provide quick takes, quips, and commentary on the latest in technology and innovation policy.
- Other blogs from ITIF include In the Arena, Rob Atkinson’s notes on the battle of ideas (also on Substack at policyarena.org), plus special series, such as The Brussels Effect, examining how the EU exports its regulatory agenda; Defending Digital, examining spurious critiques of the tech industry; and Innovate4Health, covering the intersection between intellectual property and life sciences innovation.
- ITIF analysts also frequently contribute op-eds and commentary pieces to leading publications around the world.
September 16, 2025|Blogs
Brussels’ Strategic Choice: Forge a Western Alliance to Prevail Over China, or Triangulate and Lose
It should be clear to everyone that unless Western, democratic, market-based economies start working together instead of against each other, China will dominate.
September 15, 2025|Blogs
Fact of the Week: Nine of the Top 10 Global Research Universities Are in China
In a ranking based on the total number of high-quality research articles they publish over the calendar year, Chinese universities claim 9 of the top 10 spots in the academic category.
September 11, 2025|Blogs
How Some States Are Resisting Unnecessary AI Regulations
Lawmakers in Montana, New Hampshire, and Idaho are advancing “right to compute” laws to protect individuals and businesses from limits on their ability to use computational tools and AI systems.
September 10, 2025|Blogs
America’s Innovation Future Is at Risk Without STEM Growth
If the United States fails to keep pace with China in cultivating the next generation of researchers, it risks ceding ground in the very sectors that will define economic and geopolitical leadership in the 21st century.
September 10, 2025|Blogs
Is It Too Much to Ask for a Third Way Beyond Free Trade and Constrained Trade?
Trade policy should focus first and foremost on defense, dual-use, and enabling sectors and largely ignore nonstrategic sectors.
September 9, 2025|Blogs
BEAD’s Benefit of the Bargain Round So Far: The Good, the Bad, and the Uncertain
States are starting to reveal how they’ll spend their $42 billion in BEAD broadband funds—and the early results show both promise and pitfalls. Some states are driving down costs and saving billions for adoption and affordability, while others risk burning through their budgets on expensive deployments. The stakes are high: BEAD will only succeed if it closes the digital divide on both access and affordability.
September 8, 2025|Blogs
America’s AI Action Plan: Implications for Biopharmaceutical Innovation
The White House’s AI Action Plan highlights how upgrading labs, data infrastructure, and research models is essential to unlock AI’s full potential in accelerating drug discovery and keeping the United States at the forefront of biopharmaceutical innovation.
September 8, 2025|Blogs
Fact of the Week: More Than 99 Percent of Listed Firms in China Receive Direct Subsidies From the Chinese Government
A study finds that over 99 percent of a sample of 5,260 listed Chinese firms received government subsidies totaling €35.3 billion in 2022, double the amount from 2015.
September 8, 2025|Blogs
Abundance of Meh
The cool new movement among policy wonks won’t make a dent in ensuring America wins the existential techno-economic trade war we’re fighting with China.
September 4, 2025|Blogs
AI Sovereignty Makes Everyone Weaker—America Can Lead Differently
The idea that nations can invoke “AI sovereignty” to draw on U.S. technology when convenient, while walling off their markets, is not a bargain U.S. policymakers should entertain.