Donald Trump’s close relationship with America’s tech elite was a highlight of his presidential campaign in 2024. Elon Musk, CEO of Space X; Peter Thiel, co-founder of Palantir Technologies; and Marc Andreessen, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, are among the donors to the president-elect, and some of them even participated directly on the political trail. Vice President-Elect J.D. Vance has also forged deep connections with the Silicon Valley tech community. He was elected to the Senate with the help of Peter Thiel and then gradually entered Trump’s inner circle.
Technology has not only become a key variable in U.S. domestic politics but has exerted significant influence on its national security thinking. In recent years, the technological competition between major powers has intensified. Washington continues to hype the strategic competition with China, giving rise to the securitization of science. U.S. departments related to national security have built closer connections with the tech community, choosing as their key collaborators companies, industry associations, experts and think tanks engaged in competition in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and other areas. As the new variant of the military-industrial complex in the geo-technological era, this technology-security complex has become a pillar that sustains America’s hegemony. It’s influence on China-U.S. competition is worthy of attention.
As stated in the latest National Security Strategy from the Biden administration, “this decade will be decisive” in setting the terms of China-U.S. competition. According to U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, the U.S. needs to usher in a third wave of the digital revolution and adjust its tools to protect its technology in line with new geopolitical realities. Instead of a sliding scale approach, Sullivan calls for the U.S. to “maintain as large a lead as possible.” Over the past few years, the National Security Council has been in close contact with tech giants, including Nvidia and Microsoft. It requires compliance with export control rules set by the U.S. government to prevent advanced chips and other high-tech products from being “abused” by China.
U.S. government entities in charge of high-tech policies have also displayed a tendency toward securitization. Arati Prabhakar, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, was once director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and has experience in Silicon Valley, venture capital organizations and Stanford University. She is the White House’s first top technology official to hail from a defense background since the Cold War. In her office, there’s a deputy director dedicated to national security.
It is worth noting that national security concerns are quickly spreading to basic scientific research areas. The National Science Foundation has laid out new rules on collaborating with the White House’s National Security Council, the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency to review research aimed at funding projects as one way of managing and restricting cooperation with China.
Moreover, the interaction between the Senate and technology hawks working in the private sector has intensified, shaping national security strategy from a legislative perspective. Tech-related content is embedded in hundreds of bills concerning China that have been proposed by members of the U.S. Congress over the past few years. Mark Warner, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who once founded a tech startup, said, “National security now is a technology race with China.” In February last year, the House announced the establishment of a bipartisan task force on artificial intelligence to ensure that the U.S. has the legislative tools to continue leading China in AI innovation.
On the limits of China’s access to advanced technologies, Congress has been working more extensively with high-tech companies and venture capitalists, among others. Jacob Helberg, with rich professional experience and connections in Silicon Valley, founded the Hill and Valley Forum, the epitome of the growing convergence between Silicon Valley and the U.S. government toward techno-nationalism. Helberg, a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, described the forum — a consortium of lawmakers and tech mavens — as “a coalition to win the second cold war with China.” He was tapped by Trump to be under-secretary of State for economic affairs.
In addition to Helberg, Palmer Luckey, CEO of defense contractor Anduril Industries, and other tech elites who support right-wing politics, also holds a hawkish attitude toward China, even arguing that a China-U.S. military conflict cannot be avoided. Think tanks and consultancies in the U.S. have also emerged, focusing on the study of security, tech competition between major powers and tech diplomacy. A revolving door between national security elites and the tech community has started spinning, providing a foundation for the development of the technology-security complex.
The interplay between technology and national security has become a point of emphasis for U.S. think tanks and a new batch of other organizations. For instance, the Center for Security and Emerging Technology within Georgetown University has become a rising star whose location in Washington has given it a geographical advantage, and it exerts special influence on the country’s intelligence and security departments. Keith Krach, an under-secretary of state during Trump’s first administration, co-founded the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue University, the world’s first think tank devoted to the intersection of technology and diplomacy — with a focus on China-U.S. competition.
Some organizations are more along the line of commercial consultancies, but they also play a role as think tanks, maintaining close cooperation with national security departments and Congress. Such institutions have a deeper understanding of high-tech R&D and the industrial ecology, as they occupy a pivotal position in the technology-security complex. For example, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation plays a crucial role in pressuring the U.S. to contain China on technology. Its chair, Robert D. Atkinson, has been hyping the challenges China has brought to the U.S. in semiconductors, communication and cyberspace security, AI and biotechnology. He has applied negative labels — “innovation mercantilism” and other appellations — to China, arguing that the U.S. should accelerate building a new national innovation system with greater emphasis on national security.
For the technology-security complex, an exchange between the role of U.S. national security officials and the elite from think tanks and the tech community is extremely important. The U.S. is building a whole-of-society, revolving door model to crack down on China technologically. For instance, before becoming the CEO of RAND, the prominent think tank, Jason Matheny served as coordinator for Technology and National Security at the National Security Council and deputy director for National Security in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He plays a key role in the Biden administration’s China tech policy. Will Hurd, a former CIA officer and Republican congressman, was once on the board of directors of OpenAI. In June, this AI giant appointed Paul M. Nakasone, the retired director of the National Security Agency and commander of U.S. Cyber Command, to its board. Both Hurd and Nakasone hold tough China views.
All in all, the tech community is bonding with the U.S. national security apparatus more closely, and the trend will only grow more prominent once Trump assumes office. To a large degree, the technology-security complex is the result of Washington’s “great power competition” strategy and a driver of the securitization of its China policy. While this new complex bears some resemblance to the military-industrial complex of the Cold War era, it is truly a different entity, but it’s one whose long-term impact on China-U.S. ties deserves further study. It must be understood.
