The Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) is a policy research organization at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. It was announced on 28 February 2019, launched with a $55 million grant from the Open Philanthropy Project - reported at the time as the largest such grant for AI policy work - and led by founding director Jason Matheny, a former Assistant Director of National Intelligence and director of IARPA, the US intelligence community’s research arm.
CSET produces non-partisan, data-driven analysis of the security implications of emerging technologies, with an initial and continuing focus on artificial intelligence, alongside advanced computing and biotechnology. Its researchers combine technical expertise with Georgetown’s foreign-policy networks to study issues such as AI talent flows, semiconductor supply chains, the military applications of AI, and the competition between the United States and China.
The center has become an influential voice in Washington, supplying briefings, datasets, and reports to government, media, and other stakeholders. It was established because, in Matheny’s words, demand for serious policy analysis of AI had outpaced supply, and it set out to fill that gap with evidence rather than speculation.
Why business readers should care: CSET’s analysis shapes US policy on chip export controls, AI talent, and supply chains - decisions that directly affect which companies can build and sell advanced AI and where.