Regulatory Consulting at Georgetown CSET

Overview

The Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), based at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, is by its own account the largest research organization in the world working on AI policy. Founded in 2019 as Washington’s first think tank devoted entirely to security and emerging technology, it was built around an interdisciplinary model — data scientists working alongside analysts with national-security experience, technical depth, and foreign-language proficiency — that lets it follow the data rather than the headlines. CSET’s core areas of inquiry are the foundations of AI (talent, data, and computational power), the national-security applications of AI, the policy tools available to shape AI’s development, and biotechnology. What makes CSET distinctive in a crowded field is that it doesn’t just publish analysis — it builds the public data infrastructure that the rest of the policy community uses, through its Emerging Technology Observatory (including the Map of Science and the Supply Chain Explorer). Its lineage is formidable: founding director Jason Matheny is now CEO of RAND, and executive director Dewey Murdick leads an institution whose seminal early paper on the strategic importance of AI chips arrived a full year before the semiconductor supply chain became a defining policy battleground. CSET’s translations of key Chinese AI-policy documents (‘In Translation’) and its congressional testimony make it a trusted, evidence-first resource for U.S. policymakers navigating AI, compute, and U.S.–China competition.

AI-Focused Regulatory Work

CSET’s superpower is data — the discipline of turning messy, multilingual, technical reality into tools policymakers can actually use. Rather than issuing opinions, CSET built the Emerging Technology Observatory: interactive resources like the Map of Science, which clusters the global research landscape, and the Supply Chain Explorer, which shows where China has advanced in semiconductor manufacturing and where the U.S. still leads. That evidence-first posture is why its work repeatedly lands at the center of high-stakes debates — its analysis has been featured as a Wall Street Journal exclusive, anchored conferences with House China Committee leadership, and informed congressional action. The center’s early insight that AI chips would become a strategic chokepoint, published roughly a year ahead of the supply-chain scramble it foresaw, remains the canonical example of CSET seeing around a corner. Its ‘In Translation’ series — careful English renderings of significant Chinese AI regulations and strategy documents — gives U.S. policymakers something they can rarely get elsewhere: primary-source visibility into how Beijing is actually governing AI. And because CSET is embedded in a university and staffed by an unusual blend of technical and national-security talent, it functions as both a research center and a talent pipeline, running programs that develop the next generation of analysts at the intersection of technology and security. For anyone mapping the AI-policy ecosystem, CSET is the rare shop whose datasets, translations, and testimony are cited across every other institution in this directory.

Notable AI Policy Work

• Published a seminal early paper on the strategic importance of AI chips — roughly a year before the semiconductor supply chain became a central policy battleground.
• Built and maintains the Emerging Technology Observatory, a suite of public data tools including the Map of Science (research-landscape clustering) and the Supply Chain Explorer (U.S.–China semiconductor capability).
• Runs the ‘In Translation’ series — English translations of significant Chinese AI-policy documents (e.g., the ‘AI+’ initiative, AI standardization guidelines, and draft AI ethics-review regulations).
• Analyzes AI governance, export controls, and U.S.–China competition, with work featured as a Wall Street Journal exclusive and used to inform congressional China-competition efforts.
• Published the 2025 Annual Report documenting research across AI foundations, national security, AI governance, and biotechnology, and hosted (with ORCA/NSF) a 35-expert workshop on open science, metascience, and AI.
• Serves as a talent pipeline, developing a new generation of analysts at the technology–security intersection through fellowships and research roles.

Thought Leadership

1. CSET 2025 Annual Report
   CSET’s 2025 Annual Report documenting research across AI foundations, national security, AI governance, and biotech.
2. Our Research — Emerging Technology Observatory
   CSET’s research hub and the Emerging Technology Observatory — public data tools like the Map of Science and Supply Chain Explorer.
3. CSET Publications
   CSET’s full publication library on AI talent, data, compute, national security, and AI governance.
4. Opportunities in Open Science, Metascience, and Artificial Intelligence (2025)
   A 2025 report (with ORCA and NSF) from a 35-expert workshop on using AI to advance open science and metascience.
5. CSET — main site & ‘In Translation’ series
   CSET’s main site, including the ‘In Translation’ series of English renderings of significant Chinese AI-policy documents.

Clients

Nonpartisan; serves U.S. policymakers — Congress (including the House China Committee), executive-branch agencies (national security, Commerce/BIS), and the broader policy community. Funded through Georgetown and philanthropic grants rather than commercial clients, reinforcing its independence.