GeoTech Center

An in depth report produced by the Commission on the Geopolitical Impacts of New Technologies, making recommendations to maintain economic and national security and new approaches to develop and deploy critical technologies.

In this paper, authors from the Atlantic Council and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland examine the transformation of technology and work in a broader social and political context, look at strategies that different regions of the world employ, and evaluate the transition’s geopolitical impact through alternative futures.

Standards for data and technology represent a key part of the world’s digital ecosystem, and as such, they can have significant implications for geopolitics. This report, published in partnership with the American Edge Project, endeavors to study the geopolitical dynamics surrounding technology standards setting to better inform related US policy.

On April 10, 2020, His Excellency Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, United Arab Emirates, shared his perspectives in an event titled “Technology and pandemics: Challenges and opportunities” as part of a live video discussion moderated by Mr. Frederick Kempe, President and CEO of the Atlantic Council.

On April 16, 2020, Dr. David Brin and Dr. Kathryn Newcomer shared perspectives on what technologies, investments, and policy actions could help rebuild from COVID-19 on a global scale as part of a live video discussion.

A GeoTech Hour considering how the choices made about tech design impact social issues and innovation at a national and transnational scale.

In November 2020, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) published a proposed rule to expand biometric processing to all non-US citizens and remove port limitations on the use of biometrics in the exit environment. The proposal has drawn a flurry of comments, both positive and negative with multiple privacy and immigrant-advocacy organizations raising objections to the continuation of CBP’s use of facial biometrics.

There is an increasingly visible phenomenon within Russia’s Big Tech scene: the pursuit of horizontal monopolization of the internet, or ‘ecosystemization.’

As in any era of exponential growth, the speed at which benefits are created for society is closely followed by potential threats that must be guarded against. Cyber risks pose a threat to the efficient delivery of key services and to the personal information of individual citizens. Service delivery is rapidly becoming more digital on the infrastructure front, but the range of electronic government solutions that have been deployed is even broader.