IFP Roundup: techno-industrial policy, AI action plans, and much more

Jun 04, 2025

Hope you’re enjoying the final weeks of spring! Here’s what we’ve been up to recently at IFP:

✍️ Written Work

We published the Techno-Industrial Policy Playbook along with the Foundation for American Innovation, American Compass, and the New American Industrial Alliance Foundation. Here are the five pieces from our team:
- Launching X-Labs for Transformative Science Funding by Caleb Watney
- Reforming Naval Shipbuilding by Brian Potter and Austin Vernon
- Launching Project Paperclip 2.0 to Recruit Top Scientists by Jeremy Neufeld
- Conditional Export Controls on AI Chips by Tao Burga
- Establishing Special Compute Zones by Tim Fist
Pavan Venkatakrishnan wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post about how the reconciliation bill would affect nuclear energy with FAI’s Thomas Hochman.

Our emerging tech team used AI tools to build an interactive database of every substantive submission to the White House’s request for information on its AI Action Plan.
- They also analyzed and summarized the responses here.
We also submitted a response to the White House’s request for input on its AI R&D strategy.
Sam Marullo wrote a retrospective for Foreign Affairs on what policymakers can learn from the implementation of the CHIPS and Science Act.
Violet Buxton-Walsh wrote about how visa wait times have changed over the last three years.

How to run a $5 trillion payment system. Santi interviewed David Lebryk, who was the highest-ranking civil servant in the Treasury Department and one of the most senior civil servants in the entire federal government, before being pushed out by DOGE.
How to salvage a transit project. Santi interviewed Stephanie Pollack, the Deputy Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration for the first half of the Biden admin. Before that, she served as Secretary of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (DOT).
How the Federal Transit Administration works. Santi interviewed Peter Rogoff, who spent 22 years as a staffer on the most powerful Senate committee, the Appropriations Committee (on the Democratic side). Rogoff was also the head of the Federal Transit Administration for five years.
How the '90s version of DOGE worked. Santi interviewed John Kamensky, who served for eight years as Vice President Al Gore's deputy for the Reinventing Government project, a predecessor to DOGE.
How to run the Treasury Department. Santi and guest host Kyla Scanlon, the author of In This Economy?, interviewed Wally Adeyemo, the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury during the Biden admin.

How the US scaled shipbuilding during WWII. The US currently builds around five oceangoing commercial ships per year. During WWII, we built more than 800 ships per year. Brian reviewed the history to figure out how we did it.
Robot dexterity still seems hard. How far along are we in commercializing humanoid robots? And is that even the form factor that will make the most sense for commercially useful robots? Brian surveyed the industry and found some surprising answers.
Improving naval ship acquisition. Brian and Austin expanded on their reform proposal for naval shipbuilding from the Techno-Industrial Policy Playbook.
How Japan birthed the modern shipbuilding industry. Brian closes out his series on shipbuilding by looking at how Japan catalyzed its own shipbuilding industry.
Can we afford large-scale solar PV? Brian looks at how feasible it will be to scale solar and storage in the US.

Axios cited analysis from Aidan Mackenzie on the recent Supreme Court ruling on NEPA.
Politico quoted Jeremy Neufeld about the recent policy changes affecting Chinese students in the US.
Reuters quoted Tim Fist about a new bill to fight AI chip smuggling using location verification.
Heatmap quoted Pavan Venkatakrishnan on how the reconciliation bill would affect energy innovation.