Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET)

The Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) is a policy research center at Georgetown University focused on the national-security dimensions of emerging technology, particularly AI, semiconductors and compute, and biotechnology. Founded in January 2019 and housed within Georgetown's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, it is known for China military-AI analysis, export-controls research, AI talent-flow analysis, and open data tooling.

Overview

CSET is Georgetown University's research center for the national-security dimensions of emerging technology, housed within the Walsh School of Foreign Service. It is staffed by a mix of former intelligence-community, defense, and academic researchers. Among AI-policy think tanks it follows a data-driven, quantitative methodology, building and publishing large-scale datasets and analytic tools rather than relying on commentary alone.

CSET was established in January 2019 with Jason Matheny as founding director. Matheny had previously directed IARPA and went on to senior White House technology and national-security roles before becoming President and CEO of the RAND Corporation. For much of its history the center was led operationally by executive director Dewey Murdick, a CSET co-founder with a background in data science and government analytics. In a leadership transition in late 2025, Helen Toner became executive director, and Cara LaPointe joined as director of analysis (Source: https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/2025-annual-report/). CSET describes itself as Washington's first think tank focused entirely on security and emerging technology and as having grown into the largest research organization in the world working on AI policy (Source: https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/2025-annual-report/).

Funding and independence

CSET was launched with a founding grant from Open Philanthropy, recommended at roughly $38.9 million over three years and routed via Georgetown. It has since raised additional rounds, including a $42 million grant that brought cumulative funding above $100 million and was described as positioning the center to self-fund through 2025. Other funders include the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. CSET states that it accepts funding only from parties who respect its commitment to intellectual independence. In its early years its funding was concentrated in a single dominant philanthropic backer (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Security_and_Emerging_Technology) (Source: https://cset.georgetown.edu/article/cset-receives-42-million-grant-set-to-self-fund-through-2025/).

Research areas

CSET's research relevant to AI policy spans several areas:

• China military AI — open-source procurement analysis of People's Liberation Army AI priorities.
• Military-Civil Fusion — how Chinese AI companies are entangled with the PLA and the Chinese state.
• Export controls — analysis of AI-chip and semiconductor controls and their effectiveness, feeding Export Controls (AI) and Compute Governance.
• Talent flows — the movement of AI researchers, including Chinese nationals in US labs, and associated industrial-espionage risk (relevant to the Linwei Ding conviction).
• Emerging Technology Observatory (ETO) — CSET's suite of open, public-facing data tools, such as the Country Activity Tracker and Map of Science, that let analysts and journalists query global research and investment activity in AI and adjacent fields.

CSET co-authored, with Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a brief by Zachary Arnold, Michael Horowitz, and Gregory Allen providing a detailed US–China national-security AI picture, including Task Force Lima, the AI Rapid Capabilities Cell, the CDAO, and China's roughly 75% nontraditional-vendor AI procurement pattern. See CSET + DOJ + CSIS — US-China AI National-Security Axis (composite source summary).

Recent work and priorities

In 2025, CSET published the first in a series of papers drawing on an in-house dataset of People's Liberation Army procurement documents: a September 2025 report analyzed thousands of tender documents to identify which vendors — traditional state-owned contractors and newer entrants — supply the PLA's AI-related purchases, with a 2026 follow-on series examining what the PLA was seeking to purchase (Source: https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/2025-annual-report/). In summer 2025 the center hosted a closed-door workshop on the automation of AI R&D, mapping areas of expert consensus and disagreement on a topic it characterized as central among AI insiders but largely absent from policy conversations (Source: https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/2025-annual-report/).

Entering 2026, CSET launched Project ATLAS, a data initiative building on its Map of Science that uses LLM-based methods to extract research metadata and identify emerging areas of scientific and technological activity. Its stated research priorities for 2026 are analysis of the US and Chinese technology ecosystems, responsible AI adoption for national-security missions, Project ATLAS, and the security and governance implications of progress at the AI frontier (Source: https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/2025-annual-report/).

Relationships

• related: AI and National Security — concept page drawing on CSET analysis
• related: Export Controls (AI), Compute Governance — CSET produces underlying export-controls and compute analysis
• related: AI Race Dynamics — CSET's US–China competitive framing
• related: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) — co-author of the joint US–China national-security AI brief
• supported-by: CSET + DOJ + CSIS — US-China AI National-Security Axis (composite source summary) — primary CSET source

Sources

• CSET + DOJ + CSIS — US-China AI National-Security Axis (composite source summary) — joint CSET/CSIS US–China national-security AI brief (Arnold, Horowitz & Allen).
• (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Security_and_Emerging_Technology) — founding date, funding history, leadership.
• (Source: https://cset.georgetown.edu/article/cset-receives-42-million-grant-set-to-self-fund-through-2025/) — $42M grant; cumulative funding over $100M.
• (Source: https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/2025-annual-report/) — CSET 2025 Annual Report (March 31, 2026): leadership transition (Toner, LaPointe), PLA procurement series, AI R&D automation workshop, Project ATLAS, 2026 priorities.