A National Frontier Tech Public-Private Partnership to Spur Economic Growth
Summary
The United States government needs to radically change our national approach to the commercial growth of frontier tech technology companies (e.g., new energy production and distribution, advanced manufacturing, synthetic biology, materials, robotics, mobility, space exploration, and next-generation semiconductors). Frontier tech startups can advance our nation’s future global competitive advantage, providing an opportunity to create high-tech and low-tech jobs and reshore other jobs. Coupling investment in the frontier tech innovation ecosystem with workforce training will allow the U.S. to reinvent and revitalize aspects of our declining or offshored industrial sectors and rebuild the country’s manufacturing capabilities.
The U.S. government should create a $500M fund and an administration authority that allows relevant government agencies to create public-private partnerships. This requires collaboration with private capital providers that utilizes public funding to incentivize private investment in early stage frontier tech companies. The goal is not to subsidize private investment capital in areas where the current free market system is working, but rather to identify those critical national industrial base areas where private capital is insufficiently investing and use matching grants to spur early stage private investment. This early partnership will allow increased access and collaboration between historically siloed government and venture capital innovation ecosystems. For frontier tech companies, whose growth requires both public and private capital, the U.S. must utilize our resources more efficiently to create a globally competitive future economic base.
This is a bipartisan, commonsense measure to reauthorize the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) before it expires in September 2026.
Many states are introducing AI policies and task forces, but lack the “AI-native” personnel to build and maintain initiatives. To address this in the short term, states should establish AI Resilience Cohorts to embed early-career technologists in key offices to support state AI initiatives. Right now, Virginia and New Jersey have the opportunity to take […]
We sat down with biomedical research pioneer Lee Hood to talk moonshots, metascience in medicine, and the Human Phenome Initiative.
DNA synthesis and export controls remain the primary regulatory safeguards against de novo production of harmful biological agents, yet governance frameworks lack the situational awareness and enforcement capacity to keep pace with rapidly falling technical barriers.