The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a Washington, D.C.-based think tank focused on science and tech policy, has opened a new policy center focused on industrial strategy policy, the Hamilton Center on Industrial Strategy.
The policy center will focus on pushing an approach to United States economic policy that “focuses squarely on bolstering America’s competitive position in advanced technologies and industries that constitute the most strategically important sectors of the economy,” according to ITIF.
“The United States is at risk of losing its technological, economic, and national security edge to China. Policymakers need to decisively change course to avoid that outcome,” ITIF President, and Hamilton Center Director, Robert D. Atkinson said.
“There is a deeply entrenched belief in Washington policy circles that nations can specialize in any industry where they have a comparative advantage, and whether it’s computer chips or potato chips makes little difference, because global trade is generally a win-win proposition that will lift all boats,” Atkinson continued. “But it turns out semiconductors and other advanced, traded-sector industries are far more important to economic and national security than potato chips.”
The nation’s competitive position in advanced technology sectors, like semiconductors and emerging tech research, is at the heart of both the USICA/America COMPETES legislation going through the conferencing process in Congress and the Hamilton Center’s first piece of research.
The Center’s advisory board features academics, policy advisors, and former Federal IT decision-makers, including retired Gen. Jack Shanahan, former director of the Department of Defense’s Joint AI Center.
