Open societies must create a grand strategy framework for data, sensemaking, and trust

Issue Brief Mar 21, 2025

To win the AI race, the US needs an all-of-the-above energy strategy

By Joseph Webster

To ensure US AI leadership, the United States must harness all forms of energy, allow a level playing field, and remove red tape constraining the buildout of critical enablers, especially transmission lines and grid enhancing technologies.
Artificial Intelligence China
Open societies must create a grand strategy framework for data, sensemaking, and trust

MENASource Feb 26, 2025

How the Houthis’ strikes on US MQ-9 Reaper drones serve a wider regional agenda

By Leonardo Jacopo Maria Mazzucco

The United States needs to adjust its drone deployment strategy to ensure that MQ-9 Reapers are less vulnerable to the militant group’s attacks. 
Defense Policy Defense Technologies
Open societies must create a grand strategy framework for data, sensemaking, and trust

New Atlanticist Feb 18, 2025

What’s missing from the AI debate? Patience.

By Trey Herr

The AI sector is evolving quickly, fueled by a self-reinforcing cycle of investment, commentary, and ambition. In this race for compute, patience is important to sorting out sustainable innovation from speculative excess.
Artificial Intelligence Defense Technologies

The Atlantic Council Technology Programs comprises five existing efforts—the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), the GeoTech Center, the Cyber Statecraft Initiative, the Democracy + Tech Initiative, and the Capacity Building Initiative. These operations work together to address the geopolitical implications of technology and provide policymakers and global stakeholders necessary research, insights, and convenings to address challenges around global technology and ensure its responsible advancement.

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Content

gtc photo of sun peaking through a large rock formation

GeoTech Cues

Sep 15, 2020

Open societies must create a grand strategy framework for data, sensemaking, and trust

By James Schmeling (Guest Author) and David Bray, PhD

Open societies are at a series of crossroads requiring intentional choices for the decade ahead. These choices are forced by new technologies, improvements in data capabilities, and changes in geopolitics globally. While human nature has not changed, the number of people on Earth has changed–up from 1.6 billion people on the planet in 1900, to 2.5 billion in the 1950s, to 7.8 billion in 2020.

Cybersecurity Digital Policy

In the News

Sep 15, 2020

Younus in Dawn: Absent innovation

By Atlantic Council

Economy & Business Pakistan

New Atlanticist

Sep 15, 2020

Mike Pompeo: ‘The tide has turned’ on global perceptions of Chinese threat

By David A. Wemer

Years of US campaigning against China’s unfair economic practices and aggressive diplomacy, coupled with the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, has “awakened” the world to the threat Beijing poses to international security and the global economy, according to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

China Coronavirus
AlertaVenezuela email banner

#AlertaVenezuela

Sep 15, 2020

#AlertaVenezuela: September 15, 2020

By Atlantic Council's DFRLab

After the Kremlin announced that Sputnik V – the Russian-funded vaccine for COVID‑19 – would be disseminated in Latin America during phase three trials, accounts aligned with the Maduro regime were the most engaged-with on Twitter promoting “Sputnik V.”

Disinformation Venezuela

ACFrontPage

Sep 15, 2020

Transcript: A conversation with US Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo on China, the Middle East, and the Trump administration’s foreign policy

By Atlantic Council

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo joins Frederick Kempe to discuss the United States' strategies abroad on key issues like Middle East stability, US-Iran tensions, China's rising influence, NATO's role in the world, and more.

China Middle East

GeoTech Cues

Sep 15, 2020

Why data governance matters: Use, trade, intellectual property, and diplomacy

By Pari Esfandiari, PhD, Gregory F. Treverton, PhD

Global data and internet governance represents a scattered, multi-stakeholder, bottom-up, and driven by loose coordination among various players. Data governance can be thought of as incorporating a triangle of individuals and their privacy, nation-states and their interests, and the private sector and its profits. Its current status and prospects might be thought of along several lines of activity, which are interrelated but, for the sake of clarity and with some danger of oversimplification, are discussed in the following different sections: privacy and data use; regulating to police content; using antitrust to dilute data monopolies; self-regulation and digital trade; intellectual property rights; and digital diplomacy.

Cybersecurity Digital Policy

Inflection Points

Sep 13, 2020

Biden eyes 2021 summit as chance to rally world democracies

By Frederick Kempe

The Biden team grasps the significance of the moment. They began by dissecting how much the context had changed since former President Barack Obama left office. Global democracies were on their back foot and China was not only rising but growing more assertive and authoritarian. Transnational threats had escalated, from climate to organized crime, but the rules and institutions to deal with them had weakened.

China Elections

New Atlanticist

Sep 11, 2020

India’s growing hostility towards Chinese technology shifts landscape of US-China data and cloud competition

By Justin Sherman and Lily Liu

US and Chinese tech companies, including in the cloud computing space, are competing for users within India. As the Indian government’s relations with Beijing change, so too does the landscape of this technological battleground.

China Cybersecurity

In the News

Sep 10, 2020

Borghard in the Council on Foreign Relations: Congress should act to ensure weapon systems’ cybersecurity

By Atlantic Council

Erica argues that Congress should create the conditions for the DoD to develop a more complete picture of the scope, scale, and implications of cyber threats and vulnerabilities to critical weapon systems and functions and improve their resilience. More about our expert

Cybersecurity Political Reform

In the News

Sep 9, 2020

Pandemic puts pressure on innovators to speed up

By Atlantic Council

“Necessity is the mother of invention, and right now, COVID-19 has created the need for tools to treat the current pandemic and mitigate the effects of future outbreaks, Dr. Bray said. The situation reminds him of how the risk from house fires prompted innovators to design a system to warn occupants before it was too late. ‘Can we instrument the planet in such a way that we’ll have earlier warning signs about new viruses and infections, analogous to smoke detectors?’”

Civil Society Coronavirus
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Experts

Staff

Uliana Certan

Program Assistant, European Engagement

Global Energy Center

Democratic Transitions Energy & Environment

European Leadership Accelerator Participant

Anna Ascani

Vice President of the Chamber, Italy Chamber of Deputies

Millennium Leadership Program

Central Europe Education

Fellow

Mahnaz Khan

Nonresident Senior Fellow

GeoTech Center

Geopolitics & Energy Security National Security

Fellow

Corey Jacobson

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Policy National Security

European Leadership Accelerator Participant

Alexandre Marques Pinho

Adviser to the Minister, Portugal Ministry of Defence

Millennium Leadership Program

Europe & Eurasia Security & Defense

Fellow

Martin Wolf

Nonresident Fellow

GeoTech Center

Climate Change & Climate Action Technology & Innovation
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Events

Public Event Wed, October 8, 2025 • 9:00 am ET

2025 Energy & Defense Summit
Defense Policy Energy & Environment Energy Markets & Governance Geopolitics & Energy Security