Foreign investment in U.S. companies benefits the economy, but poses risks to national security. Critical emerging and foundational technologies are especially attractive to foreign exploitation. Given the unique opportunities and challenges posed by emerging technologies, the National Counterintelligence and Security Center has prioritized its industry outreach efforts in U.S. technology sectors where the stakes are potentially greatest for U.S. economic and national security.The Office of the Director of National Intelligence reported in 2021 that new technological developments will increasingly emerge from peer adversaries, and, despite an upside to democratization of techonology, there is, nonetheless, a disruptive and destabilizing aspect, economically, militarily, and socially. From a national security perspective, advances in technologies such as quantum computing, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, automation, and manufacturing warrant extra scrutiny to anticipate the trajectories of emerging technologies and understand their implications for security. The 2022 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community reported that multiple trends are shaping the technology landscape of the next decades. The increasing convergence of disparate disciplines and the rise of global competition to generate and lock in advantage create a global diffusion of emerging technologies, accelerated timelines for development and maturation of technologies, and blurred lines between commercial and military endeavors, particularly in fields such as artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnologies, robotics, automation, and smart materials and manufacturing
