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Seventy-five years ago, Congress created the National Science Foundation (NSF) with a sweeping mandate: “to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national defense.” That last clause, often overlooked, has never been more relevant than today.
As China aggressively accelerates its investments in science and technology and increasingly masters the most advanced technologies, the United States finds itself in a new era of strategic competition, one increasingly defined not by military strength alone, but by technological capability. President Xi Jinping understands the contest and has made no secret of China’s ambitions, repeatedly calling science and technology the “main battlefield” of international competition. China has executed this strategy with the focus and resources of a real war: It includes massive research and development (R&D) spending, coordinated industrial policy, and anticompetitive trade practices backed by a scale of STEM talent development unmatched anywhere in the world. As a direct result, China’s R&D system is becoming more coordinated, more intense, and more aligned with national security objectives. And those who think China cannot innovate are unburdened by the facts. China has become the world’s top producer of science and engineering publications and patents, and excels at the rapid commercialization of innovative products.
President Donald Trump has identified that “as our global competitors race to exploit these technologies, it is a national security imperative for the United States to achieve and maintain unquestioned and unchallenged global technological dominance.” However, the United States has not sufficiently recognized that its expansive innovation capacity is key to its ability to compete with China. Without intelligence-informed research, realistic threat assessments, and reliable early commercialization pathways for our innovations, the United States cannot maintain global leadership in science and technology.
This is where the NSF must be recognized for what it truly is: a key pillar of our technological competitiveness and, therefore, of our national security. Maintaining and expanding this strategic capability requires stable and substantial support for both basic and applied research and, in the process, training the future workforce, all of which are fundamental to U.S. innovation and technological superiority.
Unfortunately, this role is not widely appreciated. For decades, the NSF has been the quiet engine of U.S. power, catalyzing discoveries and inventions that have defined the modern world, from wireless communications to MRI machines to GPS, Doppler radar, the detection of explosives, and supercomputers. It has de-risked emerging technologies long before private capital would engage, and it has delivered unmatched returns on public investments. It was a fraction of a $4.5 million NSF award that supported two Stanford graduate students with an unlikely idea that gave us Google, transforming how the world works and lives.
This was not an accident: It is what the NSF does. Some 94 percent of the NSF budget is allocated to research projects, facilities, and STEM education. NSF-funded research spans all 50 states, and nearly 2,000 academic, public, and private institutions receive merit-based support. Indeed, some estimates show that the NSF funds 24 percent of all federally funded research at U.S. universities. In addition to academic research, the NSF also funds small business innovation, supports work at national laboratories across the country, and develops the workforce of tomorrow. Through its Advanced Technological Education program, for example, the NSF has granted over 500 community colleges a combined $1.5 billion towards workforce readiness, including agricultural tech training.
In fact, recognizing the critical importance of strengthening the national security-innovation link, the NSF recently launched its first new directorate in over 30 years: the Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP), an idea that originated in the first Trump administration and was underutilized during the Biden years, but now could be revitalized with a national security focus.
TIP’s mission is clear: expand the United States’ capacity to translate research into national advantage. TIP is already spearheading initiatives like the Regional Innovation Engines, local hubs for economic growth through technologies like advanced semiconductors in Central Florida, aerospace and robotics in El Paso, and advanced agriculture in Fargo. It has launched national AI-ready testbeds, including the National Quantum Virtual Laboratory, which accelerates the path from lab to market; SECURE Analytics, a data project that protects U.S. research from foreign interference and espionage; and entrepreneurship fellowships that ensure the United States’ brightest minds have the support to build at home rather than abroad.
But the NSF’s goals to accelerate technology development and prepare the workforce of tomorrow are now under threat. Budget shortfalls, potential workforce reductions, and leadership uncertainty—including the resignation of NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan on April 24—could cripple the agency’s ability to meet the pressing challenge from China.
Abandoning what is unquestionably the main battlefield of the twenty-first century would be a strategic mistake of historic proportions. China is actively testing America’s will to lead in science and technology. Meanwhile, other countries are rapidly moving to poach U.S. talent by luring the country’s best minds with offers of stable positions and serious funding.
Certainly, the NSF can do more to transparently align public R&D spending with national security goals. Its governance structure has faced criticism for being siloed, but there’s real opportunity for its directorates to better coordinate strategic investments across the agency and to partner more proactively with national security R&D counterparts in other federal agencies. Now is the time to strengthen—not weaken—our national innovation capabilities, the path to our prosperity and our security.
At last month’s Endless Frontiers Retreat, Science Advisor to the President Michael Kratsios emphasized the urgent need for research security, early-stage commercialization, and strong public-private partnerships. What better place to underscore these priorities than at a retreat named after a visionary report that laid the groundwork for the creation of the NSF? The report underscored that uncoordinated scientific excellence is not enough; strategic leadership and sustained investment at scale are required. Quite simply, we cannot afford to fall behind in today’s tech competition—like in any race, it will be very hard to catch up.
The NSF is an agency for technological competitiveness and a key to U.S. national security. Now is not the time to disarm. The United States has always thrived when it meets emerging threats with bold vision and strategic investment.
Sujai Shivakumar is the director and senior fellow of Renewing American Innovation at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Julie Heng is a research associate with Renewing American Innovation at CSIS.
