For three decades, the United States went all-in on globalization, buoyed by the confidence that a rising tide floats all boats, but the American boat will rise highest. The rise of Chinese technology has shaken that confidence and prompted a broad policy shift.
“For many years, for many decades, we have had an oversimplified model,” Prabhakar told The Washington Post in an interview. “And that oversimplified model was that markets and globalization were going to solve all our problems.”
Ms. Prabhakar's early years were in semiconductor research, a rare background for a senior policy official, and her technical knowledge has served her well as she helps the Biden administration push through its first major industrial policy in decades, working to ensure the U.S. maintains its technological edge over China. Semiconductors, the brains of computers, are a centerpiece of the program.
“This is the largest industrial policy effort in the United States since World War II,” said Gary Hufbauer, a former assistant secretary of the Treasury and now a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “The only other U.S. effort comparable to this is the Interstate Highway System of the 1950s.”
Kevin Wolf, a former Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration, said the Biden administration has implemented the toughest technology export controls on China in recent memory and adopted a policy position that China's ability to domestically produce advanced computing systems is “per se a national security threat” to the United States.
The shift to a harder line is reflected in the appointment of Prabhakar, 65, as the president's science and technology adviser in 2022. His recent predecessors were both academics in civilian fields such as biology and meteorology.
By contrast, Prabhakar previously oversaw the Defense Department's future technology research agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and his team at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is now working on the difficult problem of accelerating U.S. innovation in semiconductors, communications, quantum computing and other technologies with military applications while curbing U.S. research and development ties with China without descending into racial profiling.
Many of these projects will take much longer than a four-year presidential term to accomplish, recognizing that the technological race with China could continue for decades, as it did during the Cold War.
Her team is already working to rally allies to support U.S. technology over Chinese technology for the 6G generation of wireless technology, which isn't deployed until about 2030. U.S. officials were caught off guard by 5G, which China has been ahead in 5G research and development and has begun rolling out its networks sooner.
“Now is the right time for everyone to start working together,” Prabhakar said of building a 6G coalition centered around the U.S. position.
Her office is in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, down a corridor patterned like a black-and-white chessboard, with the Bruce Springsteen lyric “Meet me in the land of hopes and dreams” emblazoned on the wall.
Prabhakar, who emigrated to the United States from India with her parents as a child and earned a PhD in applied physics from the California Institute of Technology, then left academia to work for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 1986 at the end of the Cold War.
“The Soviet Union collapsed while I was at DARPA and we saw the beginning of a major shift in how we thought about national security,” she said.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, one of her colleagues went to brief Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, on submarines, only for Powell to say that he was no longer interested in them. Washington downsized, embraced globalization, and secured its position as the unquestioned world leader.
“We were on a roll,” said Rob Atkinson, founder of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. “We were at the center of the internet and the IT economy. China was a non-factor. … We thought that would continue forever.”
China has unexpectedly emerged as a formidable technology adversary, rekindling a Cold War-like chill. President Donald Trump launched a trade war with China, sparking a shift in policy. After initially criticizing those policies, President Biden has surprised many by doubling down on Trump's tariffs and export restrictions, albeit with more measured rhetoric and a focus on multilateral cooperation since taking office.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan announced in September 2022 that it was no longer enough for the United States to maintain a “relative” technological advantage over its rivals, but that “we must maintain as great an advantage as possible.” Soon after, the Commerce Department, led by Gina Raimondo, unleashed a barrage of technology export controls on China.
Prabhakar's team is working on a long-term research and development strategy that includes leading research projects in quantum computing and cancer treatment, and trying to get multiple institutions to work together to squeeze more radio spectrum for new technologies to stay ahead of 6G in the race against China.
The Biden administration is also focusing on industrial policy in key technology areas such as semiconductors and communications equipment, with $52 billion in funding from the bipartisan Semiconductor and Science Act.
Ken Zita, a communications expert who has advised the Biden administration on industrial policy, said Washington is making the leap from “no industrial policy” to “industrial policy” after years of federal industrial planning that were completely outdated.
“They had to start from scratch and ask themselves, 'What can we do? Where can we act?'” Zita said.
A major challenge for the Biden administration will be how to proceed with this policy shift without stoking anti-China sentiment.
Prabhakar's team is drafting research safety guidelines for universities across the country on how to limit and monitor research relationships with China and other countries considered adversaries, a task it inherited from the Trump administration.
Prabhakar said the team is now “very close” to a final version of the rules, but declined to say when they might be released. After releasing a draft of the rules for comment last year, Prabhakar said he was deterred by feedback from the research community, including that the requirements for universities were too strict.
“If we add too many steps, it could actually make the problem worse,” she said. The House of Representatives Science, Space and Technology Committee questioned Prabhakar in February about delays in finalizing the rules. She told the committee that drafting the rules had proven more complicated than expected.
“I think it's incredibly important that we do this in a way that respects every individual and respects their rights and dignity as an individual,” she said. “It's absolutely critical that we not exacerbate anti-Asian bias in the environment that we're in.”
Draft guidelines her office put out for comment call for institutes' training programs to include instruction on “the importance of non-discrimination as a guiding principle,” though it's not entirely clear what this would look like in practice.
More broadly, the Biden administration's approach to China has been met with skepticism, with some foreign governments suspecting that the export controls are driven by trade protectionism rather than national security needs.
“When I travel overseas, whether it's Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK or our allies, almost everyone doesn't really understand what national security objectives the US government is trying to achieve with these new restrictions,” Wolf, the former assistant secretary of commerce, said.
Some, such as Atkinson, say subsidies to build new U.S. tech hubs are too scattered.
“The crux of the issue is we can't put 50 out there,” he said. “We don't have the funding. We don't have the technology to distribute it.”
Prabhakar defended the measures as part of a carefully considered, long-term plan to ensure U.S. competitiveness.
“It's important to say that this is a really carefully calibrated strategy. We're not saying, 'We're going to close down the sidewalks and not trade with anyone in the world.' It's a very global engagement, working with allies and partners.”
