GMF Technology

GMF Technology is dedicated to ensuring that democracies win the strategic technology competition.
Semiconductors

The Latest

June 05, 2025

Deep Down in the Stack: China's Entrenchment in Serbia's Technology Landscape

2m
by
Sharinee Jagtiani
June 05, 2025

Russia and China in Central Asia’s Technology Stack

3m
by
Dylan Welch
May 29, 2025

Democratic by Design: Implementing and Innovating Democracy-Affirming Technologies

2m
by
Caitlin Goldenberg, Adrienne Goldstein, Sharinee Jagtiani, Lindsay Gorman
View Program Insights

Technology has become an essential means of national power in its own right and an input into economic, military, and even diplomatic influence. To succeed in today’s competitive environment, democracies must harness this potential and advance a positive, rights-respecting vision for innovation that upholds their values while countering autocratic technology models that threaten fundamental freedoms. Alliances and alignment among transatlantic and global partners are vital to building this shared democratic technology future.

GMF Technology’s mission is to ensure that democracies together win the strategic technology competition with autocrats. Our work spans three strategic directions:

  • We advance ideas and solutions at the intersection of AI and Democracy that embed core values into the technologies and policies of the future. This involves addressing high-profile emerging threats such as artificial intelligence deepfakes in elections as well as driving alignment among transatlantic partners on governance frameworks and innovation through research and exchange.
  • We develop research that informs the emerging EU-US-China Technology Competition and recommendations to help democracies contest the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) growing technology leadership in an allied, democratic fashion.
  • We strengthen Allied Coordination and Competitiveness by elucidating the drivers of competitiveness in critical and emerging technologies, assessing how democratic allies stand today relative to their competitors, and providing a roadmap for how they can continue to lead together tomorrow. Our research and convening activities span AI, cyber and defense tech, the future internet, quantum information, biotechnology, and green tech. 

We blend a focus on issues of the day with longer-term research that is intellectually grounded and impactful.

Program Experts and Staff

Our Strategic Directions

AI and Democracy

US-EU-China Technology Competition

Allied Coordination and Competitiveness

Featured Work

Binary text in blue
Harnessing Data
October 5, 2023

A Trusted Framework for Cross-Border Data Flows

This report, by the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Tech, Law, and Security (TLS) Program at the American University Washington...
2m read
by
The Tech, Law and Security Program at American University Washington College of Law
The German Marshall Fund of the United States
Load More

Wired for Influence

Assessing the People’s Republic of China’s Technology Footprint in Europe and Central Asia

Read More

Events

All Events

In the news

Load More
“ For China, the optics of the talks may be as important as their substance, according to Lindsay Gorman, a former senior technology advisor in the Biden White House. “China wants to be a player in global governance. It wants to be on equal footing with the U.S. as another pole when it comes to leading the conversation on AI development and regulations,” said Gorman, who now heads the German Marshall Fund’s technology program. And it’s not just Washington, either—Xi’s visit to Europe this month included a joint declaration on AI governance between France and China.“China benefits from calm seas, including on these AI topics. A public show of diplomacy helps foster that image, and anything they can do to blunt some of these tech actions would definitely be in their interest,” Gorman said. ”
Foreign Policy
“ It “is not a foregone conclusion by any means” that China will allow a sale, said Lindsay Gorman, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund who specializes in emerging tech and China. ”
New York Times
“ 'No certainty' TikTok owner ByteDance would sell app if banned ”
Translated from English
MSNBC
“ US House of Representatives passes bill that could lead to TikTok ban ”
DW News
“ To one degree or another, all businesses in China operate at the pleasure of an authoritarian state. ”
Financial Times
“ The ability for a Chinese technology platform to represent critical information infrastructure in a democracy has to be part of that calculus when assessing risk ”
CNBC