US removes data centers from critical national security technology list

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The US government has issued a revision to its National Security Science & Technology Strategy

Among various changes is the reduced focus on high-performance data storage and data centers

Instead, emerging technologies are given greater prominence, while data storage and data centers feature within the document’s information management priorities

The US government has updated its National Security Science & Technology Strategy (NSSTS), an annual directive that ensures the United States’ national security strategy is supported across various dimensions. This time, however, a curious revision has been made, one that appears to relegate the significance of high-performance data storage and datacenters.

Previously, these installations have been highly regarded and appeared on the document’s list of "Critical and Emerging Technologies." With the latest revision, however, other technologies appear to have supplanted data centers.

Traditionally, the National Security Strategy (NSS), published annually, includes the science and technology element. Under the Trump administration, however, the NSSTS has been released as a companion to the NSS report.

Relegated data centers?

An initial reading of the NSSTS suggests the relevance of data centers and high-performance data storage has been reduced.

The document, which provides information to support “the nation’s economic security, science, research, and innovation to support the national security strategy,” focuses on “S&T competition as it relates to military capabilities, homeland defense and resilience, and other direct intersections with national security.”

This assists in decision-making surrounding federal funding, informs partnerships in the private sector, and joint projects with allies. Significantly, it also underpins US policies on exports of critical technology.

While the importance of data centers and high-performance data storage appears to have been demoted, it appears that the NSSTS is simply refocusing. The updated document’s information management and cybersecurity list includes “data management, including storage and security,” which seems to cover the apparent omission.

Instead, the document focuses on "transformative emerging technologies," which include artificial intelligence, autonomy, biotechnology, and quantum information technologies.

"Foreign adversaries"

The NSS and NSSTS are by definition documents that outline a roadmap for economic security. Shifts in priorities are not unusual, such as an aim to “keep foreign adversaries out of critical technology systems and supply chains.”

This would seem to refer mainly to China, and the challenges that some Chinese-manufactured wireless communications hardware has brought, something that has seen the FCC apparently working overtime.

Within the NSSTS we can see a reaction to some of this, notably an ambition of “Prioritizing homeshoring and domestic product development, which the Trump Administration is advancing by promoting balanced trade, facilitating reindustrialization, unleashing energy dominance, advancing novel material substitution for critical components, and working with suppliers from trusted partners.”

Data centers and high-performance data storage easily fit within those aims—they're just less specific than in previous editions of the NSSTS.