Implications for CFIUS reporting and review
The Executive Branch, through the National Science and Technology Council and the National Security Council, committed in 2020 to identifying items potentially important to U.S. national security. THE 2024 update was released on February 12, 2024. Updated every two years, the CET List is the product of extensive interagency deliberations and “…builds on previous lists and can inform government-wide and individual agency efforts toward technological competitiveness and of the national security of the United States.
The February 2024 CET list update identifies the following subfields:
- Advanced computing
- Advanced engineering materials
- Advanced Gas Turbine Engine Technologies
- Advanced, networked detection and signature management
- Advanced manufacturing
- Artificial intelligence
- Biotechnology
- Clean energy production and storage
- Data Privacy, Data Security, and Cybersecurity Technologies
- Directed energy
- Highly automated, autonomous and unmanned systems (UxS) and robotics
- Human-Machine Interfaces
- Hypersonics
- Integrated communications and networking technologies
- Positioning, Navigation and Timing Technologies (PNT)
- Quantum information and enabling technologies
- Semiconductors and microelectronics
- Space technologies and systems
The updated CET 2024 list places greater priority than previous iterations on data security, artificial intelligence, spatial and geopolitical competition, among other areas.
The Executive Branch has updated the CET list to reflect the complexities surrounding recent developments in artificial intelligence. The subfield of artificial intelligence now includes foundational models, generative AI systems, multimodal and extended language models, and technologies to improve safety, trust, security, and usability head of AI.
Further emphasizing the practical implications of automation, the former Autonomous Systems and Robotics subdomain has been enhanced to include support for digital infrastructure, including high definition (HD) maps.
The Semiconductors and Microelectronics subfield, revised as of the 2022 update, maintains a leading role in the list, with a renewed emphasis on specialized/custom hardware components for artificial intelligence , natural and hostile radiation environments, RF and optical components, high-power devices and others. critical applications. It includes new architectures for non-Von Neumann computing.
The 2022 update identified the Financial Technologies subfield, which has now been replaced by the Data Privacy, Data Security, and Cybersecurity Technologies subfield. The new subfield includes privacy-enhancing technologies, IT supply chain security, and augmented reality/virtual reality security and privacy technologies.
Following the themes of privacy and cybersecurity, the updated subfield of integrated communications and networking technologies adds delay-tolerant networking, modern data exchange techniques, and resilient waveforms and adaptive. Additionally, Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) technologies are its own subfield in this update. The PNT subfield adds interference, jamming and spoofing detection technologies, algorithms, analytics and networked monitoring systems. Disruption resistance/denial resistance and hardening technologies are also featured in the new PNT subdomain.
The space technology subfield is significantly enriched, in line with current geopolitical competition. The subdomain now includes resilient and multipath space communications systems, networks, and ground stations. It also adds technologies that enable access to and use of cislunar space and/or new orbits, and develops sensors and data analysis tools for space observations.
The 2024 CET List update reflects the Executive Branch’s technology priorities to strengthen national security, should be considered in alignment with other Administration national security efforts, and has implications for coverage, reporting, CFIUS filings and reviews, as the Committee considers new priorities. .
On February 28, 2024, two weeks after the 2024 update, the Department of Justice announcement the first executive order of its kind to address the extraordinary national security threat to Americans’ sensitive personal and U.S. government-related data posed by six countries of concern: China, Russia, Iran , North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland announced: “This executive order gives the Department of Justice the authority to prevent countries that pose a threat to our national security from harvesting Americans’ most sensitive personal data, including genomic data. human, biometric and personal identifiers, and personal data. health and financial data.
