Science, Technology, and Public Policy

India aims to become a leading producer of green hydrogen by the next decade as part of its broader industrial and decarbonization strategies. This brief provides an overview of India's current hydrogen strategy, as well as the challenges - land and water scarcity, infrastructure gaps, and financing gaps - that must be addressed in order for India to achieve its ambitious goals.

David Kearn argues that even in the absence of restrictive resource and budgetary constraints, a focus on identifying and achieving concrete objectives that will position the United States and its allies to effectively deter aggression in critical regional flashpoints should be the priority given the stressed nature of the defense industrial base and the nuclear enterprise.

Social media’s unregulated evolution over the past decade holds a lot of lessons that apply directly to AI companies and technologies.

Just three Big Tech firms control two-thirds of the global market for cloud computing resources used to develop AI models. This centralization results in AI systems designed to serve corporate interests. Publicly developed and owned AI models and computing infrastructure could democratize the technology itself, creating an open platform for innovation and offering guarantees about the availability, equitability, and sustainability of AI technology. The U.S. should establish a federal services agency dedicated to AI to democratize the field while prioritizing the impact of AI models on democracy.

AI has been billed as a new frontier: an expanse whose exploration will drive the next era of wealth and human flourishing. Yet, time and again, its big-tech owners have used the frontiersman billing to declare themselves accountable to no one and no law.

The Biden Administration and automotive industry have announced ambitious targets for the number of electric vehicles they hope to deploy by 2030, but automakers are not yet on track to meet those targets, according to new analysis by researchers at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. 

In the first of two articles on post-COP28 carbon financing, Research Fellow Ely Sandler shares insights on the legacy of COP28.

In the second of two articles on COP28 outcomes, Ely Sandler shares insights on the some of the changes needed to scale carbon finance.

Mariana Budjeryn writes: War never stops at the border, especially on a continent like Europe. The European Union absorbed millions of Ukrainian war refugees and poured billions of euros into Ukraine's defenses and economic survival. The war permanently reshaped Europe: its demographics, political economy, and energy architecture are shifting in ways that will have irreversible long-term consequences. All of this is because in a very real sense Ukraine already is inextricably woven into the fabric of Europe: Ukraine’s pain is Europe’s pain and Ukraine’s gain will inevitably be Europe's gain, too.

In honor of the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Belfer Center experts shared their perspectives on the future of the international human rights movement as part of the Carr Center's publication, Making a Movement: The History and Future of Human Rights.