The National Counterintelligence and Security Center has issued a fact sheet listing artificial intelligence, bioeconomy, quantum information science and technology, semiconductors and autonomous systems as emerging technology sectors that should be protected from foreign threats.

NCSC said it will prioritize industry outreach initiatives in these sectors where stakes are high for U.S. national and economic security. 

The agency noted that U.S. competitive edge in these sectors faces increasing challenges from Russia, China and other strategic competitors, which use several methods such as intelligence services, joint ventures and science and tech investments to gain access to U.S. technologies.

According to the NCSC fact sheet, foreign countries seeking to improve their AI capabilities are targeting intellectual property, human talent and research and development initiatives in AI. 

“AI is dependent on data, and the ability of adversaries to deny access to or corrupt such data poses potential vulnerabilities,” the document reads.

The agency also outlined steps that organizations can implement to mitigate counterintelligence risks, such as strengthening cybersecurity and hygiene, implementing insider threat programs and maintaining a list of anomalies or unexplained events.

The U.S. federal government has issued a 2021 action plan outlining specific measures agencies should take in support of the Federal Data Strategy.

The current plan seeks to strengthen the foundational activities of data governance, planning and infrastructure and integrates the lessons learned from the previous year’s action plan.

The 2021 action plan calls for agencies to collect and assess data identified for priority agency questions; mature data governance; data and infrastructure maturity; increase staff data literacy skills; publish agency open data plans, and improve data inventories.

Other actions outlined in the document are interagency wildland fire fuels data management; data skills workforce management; governmentwide dashboards and infrastructure and artificial intelligence and automation.

For AI and automation, milestones include making the algorithmic assessment tool publicly available for agency use and preparing an inventory of nonclassified AI use cases. These two milestones should be completed by Dec. 31st.

Heidi Shyu, undersecretary for research and engineering at the Department of Defense and a previous Wash100 Award winner, said her office plans to build a database that would provide R&E with a comprehensive view of technology capabilities being developed by service branches and other innovation organizations within DOD, Federal News Network reported Monday.

“R&E looks across every service. We’ve already gone to the Air Force, the Navy, the Marines, the Army, the [Defense Innovation Unit] and the [Strategic Capabilities Office] to try to understand what process they utilize and what companies they have gone out to,” Shyu told the publication in an interview. 

“So all of those things will be pulled together. We’d like to create a database we can tap into so that I can basically Google for a specific capability or product,” she added.

Shyu discussed the challenge that small businesses face when it comes to working with the Pentagon and how cataloging DOD’s innovation initiatives and capability gaps could help address that problem.

“But once we get all of that information together, we can go the next step. Figuring out what we already have — pulling a database together to share across the board will speak volumes,” she said. “Then, we need to figure out if there is a specific entry point we need to highlight even more to the small businesses. It’s a stepwise process we’re going through.”