AI Governance Project

The AI Governance Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is a policy research program dedicated to studying the governance, geopolitics, and national security implications of artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies. CSIS itself is one of the world's preeminent think tanks, a bipartisan nonprofit founded in 1962 during the Cold War by Admiral Arleigh Burke and David Abshire at Georgetown University, and has been an independent institution since 1987. The AI Governance Project was established in April 2022 when Gregory C. Allen, formerly the director of strategy and policy at the Department of Defense's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, joined CSIS as its director and a senior fellow in the Strategic Technologies Program. Allen's mandate was to lead a global conversation on accelerating the responsible and beneficial adoption of AI and other strategic technologies. In October 2022, CSIS launched the AI Council, an international body of 17 distinguished global leaders co-chaired by Julie Sweet (Chair and CEO of Accenture) and Brad Smith (President and Vice Chair of Microsoft), with Allen serving as executive director. The council includes figures such as Fei-Fei Li of Stanford, L. Rafael Reif of MIT, and leaders from major global corporations. The AI Council has released landmark reports influencing G7 Summit discussions on cooperative AI governance. In April 2023, the AI Governance Project was expanded through the establishment of the Wadhwani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies, made possible by a $5 million commitment from CSIS trustee Dr. Romesh Wadhwani. The center now conducts research across three primary themes: AI Governance and Regulation, examining how governments worldwide should address AI's governance challenges; Geopolitics of Advanced Technology, investigating how emerging technologies affect international power dynamics, semiconductor export controls, and economic security; and AI, Autonomy, and National Security, exploring both challenges and opportunities AI presents for defense and intelligence. As of November 2025, Aalok Mehta serves as director of the Wadhwani AI Center, bringing experience as Responsible AI Policy Lead at Google, senior advisor at SeedAI, and domestic policy lead at OpenAI during the launches of DALL-E 2 and ChatGPT. Gregory Allen continues as senior adviser. The center's team includes several resident staff and approximately eleven non-resident senior associates and adjunct fellows. The center engages policymakers through congressional testimony, private briefings, published reports, events, and the AI Policy Podcast. Allen has been described by The Economist as being very much at the center of the formulation of current U.S. policy on AI semiconductors, and by Semafor as the most-watched U.S. analyst on the subject. The center's work has influenced discussions at the 2023 and 2024 G7 Summits and the AI Safety Summit series.

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Start Date

Apr 14, 2022

End Date

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