The People’s Republic of China has been rapidly closing the gap with the United States in many areas of science and technology. Just last year, the National Security Commission on AI warned that China is poised to overtake the US as the global leader in AI by 2030. It currently graduates twice as many students from master’s programs in STEM degrees and is poised to graduate twice as many STEM PhD candidates as the United States by 2025. President Xi’s speech to the Communist Party’s 20th Party Congress made it clear that the CCP has no intention of slowing down. He talked about “regard[ing] science and technology as our primary productive force, talent as our primary resource, and innovation as our primary driver of growth.” And he laid out plans to increase investment in education, research, and development in order to produce “first-class innovators” and attract “the brightest minds from all over.”
It’s evident that cultivated talent is a major focus for the CCP right now. And with good reason—a wealth of talent is vital to the success of any cause.
Workforce shortages in critical industries like AI, microelectronics, quantum computing, cybersecurity, and many others put us at a disadvantage when it comes to defending our nation and winning the strategic competition against China. Fortunately for us, the single biggest asymmetric advantage that America has over the PRC is that the world’s smartest people want to move here and work here. Just a decade ago, economist William R. Kerr documented that between 2000 and 2010, more international inventors immigrated to the United States than any other country in the world. In fact, some of the most brilliant minds in defense science and technology hailed from other countries, and their contributions to national security are invaluable. And today, of the 50 most promising artificial intelligence startup companies identified recently by Forbes, two-thirds had at least one immigrant founder — roughly three-quarters of whom first came to the United States on student visas.
Doubling down on our efforts to attract and retain top talent should be a priority for America if we want to maintain our position as a global leader in science and technology. Unlike the recently announced export controls on PRC’s semiconductor industry, this is not something the President can do by the stroke of his pen. This will require Republicans and Democrats in Congress to work together to address difficult problems where inaction or failure has been the default for far too long.
The United States currently grants too few green cards to highly skilled workers, and the process for obtaining a green card is far too slow and cumbersome. Currently, it can take decades for highly-skilled immigrants to get a green card. As a result, highly skilled workers who could contribute to our economy and our defense capabilities are being forced to look elsewhere for opportunities. This is particularly true for US educated STEM PhD holders, who are often recruited by foreign governmentsand companies that are eager to benefit from their talents.
The defense industrial base (DIB) relies heavily on science and technology and is one area where the need for high-skilled immigrant talent is particularly acute. Our DIB is facing a critical shortage of high-skilled workers. Eighty two percent of the companies in DIB report that it is difficult to find qualified STEM workers. Last year, a plurality of NDIA members reported that the U.S. human capital gap is the single most vulnerable part of their supply chain. Part of the reason is that we simply don’t have enough homegrown talent. Our population is just over 324 million, while China’s is nearly 1.4 billion. Even if we produce the same number of STEM graduates per capita, they’re still going to have a significant advantage. For every percentage point they increase their population’s STEM share by, we have to do so by four times.
Per the National Science Foundation, forty percent of STEM PhDs and over 60 percent of Computer Science PhDs awarded by US institutions go to international students. The Department of Defense (DOD) funds the doctoral training of several of these students to develop new technologies in order to strengthen our national defense. New technologies and threats emerge all the time, and companies need workers who can keep up with these changes. Recently, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks credited our success in Ukraine to the top AI talent at DOD. But she also raised alarm at DOD’s inability to recruit in this space, while over half of AI PhDs who leave the country cite immigration challenges as the biggest reason for leaving. Congressional inaction has put us in a situation where we are driving away the brains that are developing the cutting edge technologies essential to our economic and national security.
If inaction is how we approached global talent recruitment during the Cold War, we might have found ourselves with a Soviet hegemony today. Think about that for a minute.
Now, Xi’s science and technology strategy is a direct challenge to the United States. And it’s one that we cannot afford to take lightly. The stakes are simply too high. If the Chinese Communist Party is successful in achieving its goals, it would mean that vital technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing would be developed primarily under Chinese control, with serious implications for both national security and individual privacy.
It is a major vulnerability that the current immigration system does not adequately meet the needs of the defense industry. The 118th Congress should come to a bipartisan agreement to increase the number of green cards available to highly skilled workers and it could start with emerging technology areas critical to our economic and national security. Inaction could cost us dearly. None of this will be easy, but it is essential if we want to maintain our position as the global leader in science and technology. The alternative is simply too costly to contemplate.
Divyansh Kaushik is a PhD candidate in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). He frequently writes about emerging technologies, national security, and US-China strategic competition.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.
