Intensifying US–China tech competition and the securitization of S&T are narrowing the strategic space for middle powers to pursue autonomous policy choices. For the UK, maintaining influence will depend on developing comparative advantage in critical niches while safeguarding the research ecosystem that enables innovation.
Technological capability has long been a driver of geopolitical competition, from the Industrial Revolution through to the nuclear age and the space race of the mid-twentieth century. However, in recent years science and technology (S&T) has arguably taken on unprecedented strategic significance. What distinguishes the contemporary period is not simply the pace of technological change, but the emergence of multiple transformative and general-purpose frontier technologies simultaneously.
Today’s S&T environment is more internationally interconnected than ever before. Technological leadership in frontier fields relies upon global talent networks, international research collaboration, and integrated supply chains spanning multiple jurisdictions. This globalized innovation ecosystem creates opportunities for accelerated scientific discovery and diffusion of knowledge. Yet it also introduces new vulnerabilities, including exposure to external dependencies that may be leveraged by more powerful states for strategic advantage or coercion.
These dynamics have contributed to the rise of what can be termed ‘techno-
nationalism’ or ‘techno-economic statecraft’: the tendency for states to view technological capability, supply chains and innovation ecosystems as instruments of statecraft, rather than simply as domains of scientific collaboration and commercial activity. Across advanced economies, governments are adopting more interventionist approaches to S&T policy; many are deploying industrial strategy, investment screening, regulation and national security measures to strengthen their sovereign capabilities, protect critical technologies and reduce strategic vulnerabilities.
Great power competition
A defining feature of this environment is intensifying strategic competition between the US and China. Both powers increasingly regard technological leadership as central to their long-term prosperity, military power and geopolitical influence, and have adopted policies intended to strengthen domestic innovation while restricting rivals’ access to strategic technologies. The result is a self-reinforcing dynamic whereby efforts by one side to reduce vulnerabilities, secure supply chains or restrict technology transfers are interpreted by the other as strategic challenges requiring countermeasures.
This geopolitically linked competition intensified during the late 2010s as US concerns over China’s rapid technological rise and acquisition of foreign IP and expertise, and the strategic implications of growing technological interdependence, prompted a reorientation of S&T policy in the US. Assumptions that technological progress was best served by open, market-led innovation gave way to tighter US controls on the transfer of technology and knowledge. Successive US administrations strengthened foreign investment screening and export controls, particularly targeting advanced semiconductors and semiconductor manufacturing equipment destined for China; this was in an effort to limit China’s ability to leverage Western technological strengths and degrade US advantage, and involved controlling the transfer of critical technological inputs and capabilities underpinning advanced computing and AI to China. Enactment in the US of the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act reflected a parallel shift towards prioritizing domestic industrial strategy, supported by increased federal research and development (R&D) investment aimed at rebuilding the US’s technological capacity and industrial base.
Concurrently, the US government intensified its scrutiny of the US research sector. The Department of Justice’s ‘China Initiative’, which ran from 2018 to 2022, targeted economic espionage, IP theft and undisclosed ties to Chinese entities that the US government deemed high-risk. The initiative focused on federally funded research in STEM fields and on activities assessed as being linked to the Chinese state. Although discontinued following criticism over racial profiling and the programme’s dampening effect on international S&T collaboration, the initiative contributed to a durable shift towards tighter federal oversight of the research sector. Research security was further institutionalized by measures such as the National Security Presidential Memorandum-33 (NSPM-33), issued in 2021, which established a government-wide baseline for research security and made compliance with standardized disclosure, research security and research integrity requirements a condition of eligibility for receipt of US federal research funding.
Central to China’s approach is the concept of ‘military–civil fusion’, which aims to eliminate barriers between civilian and defence innovation, allowing scientific and technological advances developed in universities and industry to support military capability.
Meanwhile, China under President Xi Jinping has elevated S&T to the centre of national strategy, with technological primacy framed as essential not only for economic growth but also for national security, military modernization and what the political leadership calls the ‘great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’. Policies such as ‘Made in China 2025’, the political leadership’s Innovation-Driven Development Strategy and successive five-year plans have channelled state subsidies and incentives into strategic sectors with the aim of reducing dependence on foreign technologies and positioning China as a leading technological power. Central to China’s approach is the concept of ‘military–civil fusion’, which aims to eliminate barriers between civilian and defence innovation, allowing scientific and technological advances developed in universities and industry to support military capability. Complementing this is the drive, led by the Communist Party of China (CPC), to achieve technological self-reliance; this is intended to reduce dependence on foreign technologies while building indigenous strength across strategic sectors.
The scale and speed of China’s technological development have reshaped global perceptions of the innovation landscape. Research by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) suggests that China now leads globally across a majority of assessed frontier S&T domains, including AI, quantum sensing, advanced materials and biotechnology; ASPI’s analysis puts China ahead in 66 of 74 technologies tracked. Developments such as the rise of Chinese firm DeepSeek’s AI models have challenged assumptions that China’s state-led research system constrains innovation. By reportedly achieving near-frontier performance using less advanced chips but computationally efficient architecture and AI training techniques, DeepSeek has renewed debate over the effectiveness of US restrictions on advanced semiconductor exports as a means of maintaining US leadership in AI.
These developments have generated cascading international effects, prompting other states to reassess dependencies, strengthen domestic capabilities, and introduce enhanced economic and research security measures. The EU’s pursuit of technological sovereignty and strategic autonomy exemplifies this trend, and is driven by concerns over geopolitical overexposure, critical dependencies and threats to supply-chain resilience. This agenda has become increasingly urgent following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and amid growing uncertainty surrounding the long-term reliability of the US as a security partner under the second Donald Trump administration.
In parallel, US S&T policy under President Trump has become more volatile. While the administration has advanced select minilateral initiatives aimed at ‘friendshoring’ critical mineral and semiconductor supply chains, it has rolled back elements of previous policy architecture. Most notably, the rescinding of the Biden-era AI Diffusion Rule in May 2025 and the subsequent relaxation of restrictions on exports of NVIDIA’s H200 advanced chips to China signalled a shift away from a rules-based export control framework towards a more flexible and transactional approach. Although later measures have sought to tighten enforcement and close regulatory loopholes – including through strengthened restrictions on Department of War-funded research involving institutions deemed ‘Foreign Institutions Engaging in Problematic Activities’, alongside Department of War-ordered research security audits of 30 US academic institutions – the overall direction of policy raises questions about the consistency and durability of US strategy.
Stuck in the middle
For middle powers, including the UK, the growing securitization of S&T creates a more constrained strategic environment in which economic, technological and security choices are increasingly shaped by decisions in Washington and Beijing. In contrast to the US and China, middle powers lack the market size, capital resources and technological breadth necessary to achieve self-sufficiency across as many aspects of critical technology. Moreover, such countries remain deeply dependent on global research networks, international talent flows, foreign investment, and supply chains increasingly affected by great power competition.
Within this international environment, middle powers find themselves caught between competing imperatives. Economic prosperity in the modern age depends on continued engagement with China through trade, research collaboration, investment and manufacturing networks. At the same time, for historically US-aligned liberal democratic states, security partnerships, intelligence cooperation and access to advanced military technology remain anchored to the US. Growing uncertainty surrounding Trump’s transactional, ‘America First’ approach to foreign policy and alliances, alongside intensifying US–China rivalry, has complicated this balancing act. Decoupling from either power is neither feasible nor desirable, yet excessive dependence on either carries growing risks.
The central challenge for middle powers is to preserve a degree of strategic autonomy. As the international economic and security order becomes more fragmented and less predictable, resilience and strategic leverage become increasingly important. For most middle powers, this does not mean pursuing technological self-sufficiency. Rather, it means identifying areas where they can develop sovereign capability, reduce critical dependencies, and retain influence despite lacking superpower scale.
For the UK, S&T represents one of the most important foundations of such leverage. Despite a relatively limited domestic market, the UK remains one of the world’s leading S&T powers: it has the third-largest technology ecosystem by aggregate enterprise value – estimated at approximately US$1.2 trillion, behind only the US and China – with strengths across a range of fields that include AI, quantum technologies, advanced materials, synthetic biology and advanced sensing. These advantages are rooted less in industrial scale than in the strength of the UK’s research and innovation ecosystem, particularly its universities. In an increasingly competitive global S&T landscape, the UK’s ability to maintain strategic autonomy and national advantage will depend heavily on its capacity to protect and sustain these assets.
