FC / NETWORK
Registry 01 · Domain
Emerging Technologies
Seventy-five years of patient work, and a door held open for you.
Frontier capability, dual-use risk, and the design of new institutional response.
Classification
Research domain
Cross-disciplinary index
Brief / 01
Context record
Emerging-technologies research at RAND focuses on frontier capability, AI, quantum, biotechnology, space, semiconductors, and the dual-use risk profile that determines whether institutional response keeps pace.
Under President Jason Matheny's leadership, RAND has sharpened its focus on the frontier technology variables that most shape national security and civilizational outcomes, biosecurity, frontier AI, quantum, semiconductors, and space. The work consistently couples technical analysis to policy and governance design.
RAND's Signature Themes in Emerging Technologies
Biosecurity
The dual-use risk profile of advancing biological capability, and the institutional response sufficient to it.
Quantum and semiconductors
Supply-chain concentration, technology export controls, and the long-horizon implications of computing-hardware competition.
Space systems
Contested space, on-orbit infrastructure, and the policy architecture for a more crowded and more strategic domain.
Frontier-tech governance
Which institutional forms can credibly govern technologies that move faster than their oversight.
Representative Work
The Operational Risks of AI in Large-Scale Biological Attacks
RAND · RR-A2977-2
Securing AI Model Weights
RAND · RR-A2849-1
An Assessment of the U.S. Microelectronics Industrial Base
RAND · RR-A1430-1
Methodological Emphasis
Technical-policy analysis, structured red-teaming, and continuous evaluation of fast-moving capability landscapes.
Methodological Lineage →Affiliated Researchers