SCSP Summer Reading List and AI Expo Save the Date

Hello, I’m Ylli Bajraktari, CEO of the Special Competitive Studies Project. If you're fascinated by the way AI is revolutionizing our world, you're in the right place. With summer in full swing, we've curated a list of fascinating reads and listens from SCSP that give a peek into our world class events and explore the crucial topics impacting our world. 

Additionally, we are thrilled to officially announce next year’s date for the AI+ Expo and Ash Carter Exchange. You will not want to miss this monumental gathering.

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📢 Save the Date for AI+ Expo 2025

Mark your calendars for June 2-4, 2025 for the AI+ Expo and Ash Carter Exchange in Washington, DC! We're thrilled to announce the save the date for this annual groundbreaking event, where the future of AI and its impact on the world will unfold. Stay tuned for more details and get ready to be inspired!

We are sharing, for the first time, the highlight video from our inaugural AI Expo. Thousands of you joined us for this dynamic experience in our nation’s capital. Relive some of the unforgettable moments with us through the video below. 

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SCSP Summer Reading List

The SCSP team is excited to share our top picks for “summer reading,” featuring thoughtful analysis that explores the critical challenges facing our world. Dive into these resources to gain insights into the most important topics of our time. 

🆕 Out this Week

• Dr. Eric Schmidt and General Mark A. Milley argue that America Isn’t Ready for the Wars of the Future in Foreign Affairs Magazine.

📖 Worth the Read 

• Vision for Competitiveness: Mid-Decade Opportunities for Strategic Victory. Our landmark report offers a bold blueprint for our shared future. It outlines how the U.S. can bolster national strength, strengthen alliances, rebuild deterrence, catalyze American prosperity, and ensure our leadership in the coming era of AI-driven technological innovation. Want high-level summaries? Check out deep dives like this and this.

• National Action Plans for U.S. Leadership in Next-Generation Energy and Advanced Manufacturing. The fourth and fifth of a series to address two technology battlegrounds, defined by the application of AI, in the energy and industrial sectors.

• Intelligence Innovation: Repositioning for Future Technology Competition. Our Intelligence panel unpacks why the speed of technological transformation warrants the need for a major catalyst of change in the Intelligence Community’s focus, methods, and culture. 

📣 World Leaders on the SCSP Stage

• The Future of Geopolitics and the Role of Innovation and Technology. This exciting panel was our most heavily attended session at the Ash Carter Exchange. Dr. Eric Schmidt, General Mark A. Milley, Palantir’s Dr. Alex Karp, and CIA’s David S. Cohen in conversation with Andrew Ross Sorkin at the AI Expo.

• Fireside Chat with the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. Jake Sullivan sat down with Daniel Kurtz-Phelan and outlined why America must remain competitive now and in the future. 

• Accelerate Change or Lose. A memorable fireside chat with current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Q. Brown and Ylli Bajraktari at the Ash Carter Exchange.

• AI, Innovation, and the Role of Public-Private Partnerships: A conversation between Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and Accenture CEO Julie Sweet.

• The Future of AI: Where are We Now and the Next Wave. Dr. Eric Schmidt in conversation with Daniel Kurtz-Phelan on China, AI, and the future. 

• Fireside Chat with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in a moderated discussion with Tammy Haddad on AI and what the United States must do to remain a global tech leader.

• AI Insight Forum. Senators Todd Young, Mike Rounds, and Martin Heinrich join Mac Thornberry for a bipartisan conversation on the AI Insight Forums and what’s next for U.S AI policy.

📱 Cutting Edge Tech

• Forecasting the Frontier: Global Perspectives on Tech Horizon Scanning: Looking at the future of technology and how to innovate to get there.

• The Next 100 Years of Flying: The future of flying to include hydrogen, EV TOL, autonomous, hypersonic passenger and advanced manufacturing across the next 100 years of flight.

• Countering Adversarial Use of AI: Experts delve into the anticipated use-cases of AI-driven technologies by U.S. adversaries during potential conflicts.

• The Future of Advanced Research: All of the ARPA directors at once! They discuss current and future areas of research in the fields of defense, intelligence, health, and energy, as well as the challenges and opportunities ahead.

• Adapting Intelligence for An Era of Techno-Economic Competition: Intelligence experts discuss the "how" of techno-economic intelligence and the role of technology.

🗞️ Niche Newsletters 

• AI + The Axis of Disruptors: World Order at a Tipping Point: A Tehran Security Conference

• AI + IP: When AI Helps Generate Inventions, Who is the Inventor?

• AI + Taiwan: The View from Taiwan: Democracy in Action

• AI + Fusion Energy: Losing the Race for Nuclear Fusion

• AI + Republic of Korea: Korea’s Tech Story and Where It’s Been

🎤 Bingeable NatSecTech Podcasts

• Episode 38: RUSI and SCSP on "Leveraging Human–Machine Teaming"

• Episode 41: Clint Hinote and Mick Ryan on Uncrewed Systems and the Transformation of U.S. Warfighting Capacity 

• Episode 44: CMU’s Erica Fuchs on Critical Technology Strategy

• Episode 47: Booz Allen Hamilton’s Horacio Rozanski on Technology Startups

• Episode 52: MIT Tech Review’s Mat Honan on the Growth of Technology

📰 Op-Ed’s and Outsiders

• Ylli Bajraktari on What the US needs to do to win the fusion race in The Hill and The Future of AI will require an energy breakthrough. The answer is a fusion moonshot in UtilityDive. 

• Liza Tobin and Addis Goldman unpack why The U.S. Needs a Techno-Industrial Strategy in Project Syndicate.

• Ylli Bajraktari along with Tom Mitchell and Daniela Ruis discuss Three ways the US could help universities compete with tech companies on AI innovation in MIT Technology Review.

• Chip Usher on Leveraging Tech in the Intelligence Community in The Cipher Brief.

• Ylli Bajraktari argues that AI-Augmented Disinformation Is NATO’s New Battlefield in Project Syndicate.

• The Wire China discussed our first ever AI Expo for National Competitiveness here: What Happened At America’s Own Military-Civil Fusion Fair. 

• Meaghan Waff on how AI-Powered Adversaries are Gearing Up to Undermine Elections in The Cipher Brief.

🇺🇸 Innovative Capital Summit

In July, SCSP partnered with the U.S. Department of Commerce, in coordination with the Economic Development Administration (EDA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Milken Institute, to host the Innovative Capital Summit. This gathering brought together over 260 representatives from EDA’s Regional Technology and Innovation Hubs (Tech Hubs) and NSF’s Regional Innovation Engines (Engines), government, industry, academia, and philanthropy to spotlight projects and help foster collaboration in regional tech development.

We heard presentations from the Tech Hubs and Engines on groundbreaking advancements in quantum computing, semiconductors, medicine, biotechnology, energy, climate resilience, agriculture, aerospace, critical minerals, advanced materials, autonomy, and manufacturing. We heard from capital providers on smart investment. And we heard from government and technology leaders, such as Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and Dr. Eric Schmidt, on the need to stay competitive, protect our economic and national security, and promote place-based innovation.

Watch Secretary Raimondo and Dr. Schmidt’s moderated conversation here.

What’s Next? 📌

This just scratches the surface. We recommend checking out Our Work on our website and exploring our Substack and YouTube Channel for more. As always, we hope you subscribe online and join us for our unmatched, in-person events. With many experiences on the horizon, we hope to see you soon.

• The International Strategy Forum (ISF) is a next-generation fellowship program that convenes the world’s brightest leaders working at the intersection of technology and geopolitics. The ISF team launched the application for the 2025 cohort of ~75 to 90 Fellows. The application deadline is August 15th. More info here.

• SCSP’s Commission on the Scaling of Fusion Energy will launch in September. Over the next 12 months, the bipartisan commission will rally government, academia, and industry behind a shared vision for the deployment of fusion energy to secure America’s position in the energy transition.

• On September 26, 2024, SCSP’s AI+Energy Summit will convene the nation’s top policymakers, technologists, and energy industry leaders to discuss ideas and solutions that will enable America to maintain its competitive edge at the nexus of AI and energy. Join the waitlist today.

• SCSP will convene the AI+Robotics Summit on October 23, 2024. The second summit in our "AI+" series, the purpose of the event is to chart a national strategy for leadership at the intersection of AI and robotics by convening innovation leaders to demonstrate technology directions, discuss policy implications, and identify the essential variables for U.S. competitiveness.

• AI+Expo is happening from June 2-4, 2025! Interested in joining us next year as an exhibitor or sponsor? Let us know here.

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