Eric Emerson Schmidt is an American businessman and former software engineer who served as the CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011 and the company's executive chairman from 2011 to 2015. He also served as the executive chairman of parent company Alphabet Inc. from 2015 to 2017,and Technical Advisor at Alphabet from 2017 to 2020. In April 2022,the Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimated his net worth to be US$25.1 billion.
Peter Andreas Thiel is a German-American billionaire entrepreneur,venture capitalist,and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal,Palantir Technologies,and Founders Fund,he was the first outside investor in Facebook. As of June 2023,Thiel had an estimated net worth of $9.7 billion and was ranked 213th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Reid Garrett Hoffman is an American internet entrepreneur,venture capitalist,podcaster,and author. Hoffman was the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn,a business-oriented social network used primarily for professional networking. He is currently a partner at the venture capital firm Greylock Partners and a co-founder of Inflection AI.
The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is a department of the United States government,part of the Executive Office of the President (EOP),established by United States Congress on May 11,1976,with a broad mandate to advise the President on the effects of science and technology on domestic and international affairs.
Kenneth Alan Howery is an American entrepreneur and diplomat. He is a co-founder of PayPal and Founders Fund. He served as the U.S. Ambassador to Sweden from 2019 to 2021 under President Donald Trump.
Aneesh Paul Chopra is an American executive who served as the first Chief Technology Officer of the United States. He was appointed in 2009 by President Barack Obama and was at the White House through 2012. Chopra previously served as Virginia's Secretary of Technology under Governor Tim Kaine. Chopra was a candidate in 2013 for the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. He is the author of Innovative State:How New Technologies Can Transform Government (2014) and co-founder and president of CareJourney. In 2015 he joined Albright Stonebridge Group as a senior advisor.
The United States Chief Technology Officer is an official in the Office of Science and Technology Policy. The U.S. CTO helps the President and their team harness the power of data,innovation and technology on behalf of the American people. The CTO works closely with others both across and outside government on a broad range of work including utilizing technology to improve the government and its services,while supporting national interests through the promotion of technological innovation. Specifically,the CTO uses applied technology to help create jobs,create paths to improve government services with lower costs,higher quality and increased transparency,help upgrade agencies to use open data and expand their data science capabilities,improve quality and reduce the costs of health care and criminal justice,increase access to broadband,bring technical talent into government for policy and modern operations input,improve community innovation engagement by agencies working on local challenges,and help keep the nation secure.
The federal Chief Information Officer of the United States,also known as the United States Chief Information Officer,is the administrator of the Office of Electronic Government,or the Office of the Federal CIO (OFCIO),which is part of the Office of Management and Budget. The President appoints the Federal CIO. The appointee does not require Senate confirmation. It was created by the E-Government Act of 2002.
Alondra Nelson is an American academic,policy advisor,non-profit administrator,and writer. She is the Harold F. Linder chair and professor in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study,an independent research center in Princeton,New Jersey. From 2021 to 2023,Nelson was deputy assistant to President Joe Biden and principal deputy director for science and society of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP),where she performed the duties of the director from February to October 2022. She was the first African American and first woman of color to lead OSTP. Prior to her role in the Biden Administration,she served for four years as president and CEO of the Social Science Research Council,an independent,nonpartisan international nonprofit organization. Nelson was previously professor of sociology at Columbia University,where she served as the inaugural Dean of Social Science,as well as director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender. She began her academic career on the faculty of Yale University.
Chris C. Kemp is an American entrepreneur who,along with Dr. Adam London,founded Astra,a space technology firm based in California,in 2016. He served as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View,California,and as NASA's first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for IT. While at NASA,Kemp partnered with Google and Microsoft and helped in the creation of Google Moon and Mars. He worked with the White House to develop the cloud computing strategy for the United States Federal Government and co-founded OpenStack,an open-source software project for cloud computing. He was also one of the founders of Nebula,a company that from 2011 to 2015 worked to commercialize the technology.
The Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering,abbreviated USD (R&E),is a senior official of the United States Department of Defense. The USD (R&E) is charged with the development and oversight of technology strategy for the DoD. The post has at various times had the titles Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering,or Director of Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E). The latter title has itself historically varied between the rank of under secretary and that of assistant secretary.
Palantir Technologies is a public American company that specializes in big data analytics. Headquartered in Denver,Colorado,it was founded by Peter Thiel,Nathan Gettings,Joe Lonsdale,Stephen Cohen,and Alex Karp in 2003. The company's name is derived from The Lord of the Rings where the magical palantíri were "seeing-stones," described as indestructible balls of crystal used for communication and to see events in other parts of the world.
Brian Matthew Krzanich is an American engineer. Krzanich joined Intel as an engineer in 1982 and served as chief operating officer (COO) before being promoted to CEO in May 2013. As CEO,Krzanich was credited for diversifying Intel's product offerings and workforce. However,during Krzanich's term as CEO,Intel went through major restructurings and pulled out of the mobile chip market. Because of Krzanich's decisions,Intel also struggled to produce 10-nanometer chips,compared to chip manufacturers TSMC and Samsung,resulting in numerous delays and a loss of market share in the computer chip business to rivals like AMD.
Palmer Freeman Luckey is an American entrepreneur best known as the founder of Oculus VR and designer of the Oculus Rift,a virtual reality head-mounted display that is widely credited with reviving the virtual reality industry. In 2017,Luckey departed Oculus and founded defense contractor Anduril Industries,a defense technology company focused on autonomous drones and sensors for military applications. Luckey ranked number 22 on Forbes' 2016 List of America's Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40.
Fei-Fei Li is an American computer scientist who was born in China and is known for establishing ImageNet,the dataset that enabled rapid advances in computer vision in the 2010s.
A military artificial intelligence arms race is an arms race between two or more states to develop and deploy lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS). Since the mid-2010s,many analysts have noted the emergence of such an arms race between global superpowers for better military AI,driven by increasing geopolitical and military tensions. An AI arms race is sometimes placed in the context of an AI Cold War between the US and China.
Cristin Ann Dorgelo is the senior advisor for management at the White House Office of Management and Budget. Dorgelo is the president emeritus of the Association of Science and Technology Centers,where she previously served as president and CEO. Dorgelo served as the chief of staff at the Office of Science and Technology Policy during the Barack Obama White House.
The William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 is a United States federal law which specifies the budget,expenditures and policies of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for fiscal year 2021. Analogous NDAAs have been passed annually for 59 years. The act is named in honor of Representative Mac Thornberry,who served as either the chair or the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee. Thornberry retired from Congress at the end of the congressional session.
Anduril Industries,Inc. is an American defense company specializing in autonomous systems. It was founded in 2017 by Palmer Luckey alongside investors and founders associated with Palantir and SpaceX. Anduril's strategy includes providing the U.S. Department of Defense with technology that Silicon Valley firms have eschewed due to their controversial military applications,including artificial Intelligence and robotics. Anduril's major products include unmanned aerial systems (UAS),counter-UAS (CUAS),semi-portable autonomous surveillance systems,and networked command and control software.
