The RAND Corporation is a US nonpartisan policy research nonprofit that originated as a US Air Force operations-research project and now produces analytical research for policymakers across national security, health, education, labor, and technology. In AI policy it is a producer of quantitative governance research, particularly on the compute, power, and national-security dimensions of frontier AI, and is the current institutional home of compute-governance researcher Lennart Heim.
| Field | Value | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | 501(c)(3) policy research nonprofit (originated as a US Air Force project, 1948) | |
| Headquarters | Santa Monica, California | |
| Founded | 1948 (spun out of Project RAND at Douglas Aircraft) | |
| President / CEO | Jason Matheny (since 2022; previously founding director of [[cset | CSET]]) |
| Known for | Defense analysis, nuclear strategy, systems analysis, public policy, and AI/compute governance research |
Overview
RAND produces nonpartisan, analytical research for policymakers across national security, health, education, labor, and technology. It originated as an Air Force operations-research project during the early Cold War, spun out of Project RAND at Douglas Aircraft in 1948, and retains ties to the US defense and intelligence communities; its research now spans dozens of domestic and international policy domains.
AI policy work
RAND is an institutional home for quantitative AI governance research, concentrated on the compute, power, and national-security dimensions of frontier AI. Its prominence in this area is associated with three factors. Jason Matheny, who founded CSET at Georgetown and served on the Biden NSC as AI and emerging-technology lead, became RAND CEO in 2022 and brought a compute-governance research agenda. Lennart Heim moved from GovAI (Oxford) to RAND, anchoring the institution's compute and power forecasting work. RAND's traditional US government client base (DoD, DOE, the intelligence community) gives its AI work direct policy uptake.
RAND also publishes commissioned work on AI national security, autonomy, and military AI procurement that is referenced across CSIS and CSET analyses.
Research themes
- Compute governance — training-compute measurement, power forecasting, verification infrastructure
- Export controls — analysis of BIS controls' effectiveness and design
- AI and national security — DoD adoption, autonomy, military competition with China
- AI policy design — frameworks for agency AI governance, risk management, and procurement
Key publications
AI's Power Requirements Under Exponential Growth (Pilz, Mahmood, Heim, RAND RRA3572-1, 2025) is a reference forecast used in US federal energy-AI planning. It estimates US AI data-center power at 5–8 GW in 2024, rising to 40–80 GW by 2030, potentially 8–15% of US electricity consumption, and argues that power, not chips, is becoming the binding constraint on AI scaling.
Funding and governance
RAND is primarily funded through federal contracts and grants (DoD, HHS, DHS, and other agencies), supplemented by foundation grants and philanthropic gifts. Its federally-funded research-and-development-center (FFRDC) work for the Air Force, Army, and intelligence community is long-standing. AI-specific funding includes contracts from NIST, the National Science Foundation, and defense clients, as well as foundation grants from Open Philanthropy and Hewlett for governance research.
Key people
- Jason Matheny — President and CEO; founded CSET; former NSC.
- Lennart Heim — compute-governance researcher; lead author on RAND's AI power-requirements report.
- Additional RAND researchers contribute to AI work; the institution's output is large and distributed.
Relationships
- related: Lennart Heim — current institutional affiliation; anchors RAND compute work
- related: Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) — Matheny's prior institution; parallel natsec-AI research shop
- related: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) — parallel think tank; RAND data feeds CSIS policy writing
- related: Compute Governance, AI Environmental Impact, Semiconductor Supply Chain
- related: Export Controls (AI), AI Race Dynamics
- supports: RAND — AI's Power Requirements Under Exponential Growth (2025)