Deep Tech Spring 2026 in Review

Intro

As we conclude the 2025–2026 academic year, we want to recognize the students, faculty, staff, and partners who have helped move our efforts at Deep Tech forward. As many of the students who helped shape Deep Tech’s work graduate and begin their next chapters, we are grateful for their contributions and excited to follow the impact they will make beyond Duke. We look forward to building on this momentum in the new academic year. 

Deep Tech’s work continues to focus on the places where technology, governance, and public purpose meet. Although our five focus areas – artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, quantum computing, renewable energy technology, and semiconductors – are often discussed separately, the policy questions surrounding them continue to overlap. These intersections are a critical reminder of why deep tech policy requires interdisciplinary collaboration.

Research

This spring, Deep Tech published Bridging the Gender Gap in Cybersecurity: Addressing Barriers and Expanding Workforce Participation in Latin America, a research project produced in partnership with the Global Cybersecurity Forum (GCF). Released in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, the report examines barriers for women in cybersecurity across Latin America and offers practical recommendations for expanding entry, retention, and upward mobility in the field. This project reflects a broader Deep Tech priority: building global capacity around emerging technologies by broadening access to critical technical fields.

Through the AI for Metascience Program, supported by OpenAI, Deep Tech’s global AI work continued with a project on sharing AI innovation in the Global South. The project looks at how regions in the Global North and Global South can collaborate on AI governance, risk analysis, and resource allocation. It also examines how countries in Latin America and Africa can define their own role in the broader AI ecosystem. As part of this project, a draft report, AI Governance and Equity in Latin America, has been released, with a related report on Africa in the review process. The work is especially timely as countries consider where they fit in the AI tech stack as contributors to governance, infrastructure, talent development, and regional supply chains.

Following Sharing AI Compute in the Global South, an event co-sponsored by Deep Tech and organized by the India Forum, Deep Tech published Compute as Power: Reflection on “Sharing AI Compute in the Global South.” Access to compute affects who can build AI systems, who can deploy them, and who has a meaningful voice in shaping AI’s future. Tamsin Connerly’s blog emphasizes this point: compute is not merely a technical resource, but a mechanism of strategic advantage. 

Deep Tech’s quantum work advanced through the announcement of a collaboration with the Duke Quantum Center on Export Controls and Quantum Technologies: Balancing Security and Innovation. The project, led by Deep Tech Researcher Lily Bermudez, examines how export controls affect quantum computing, communications, and sensing, with particular attention to the tension between national security priorities and the open research environments that drive scientific discovery. As quantum technologies mature, questions about how to calibrate export control tools will become increasingly important for universities, companies, policymakers, and national security institutions.

Convening Leaders/Forums

Deep Tech’s spring event programming brought together leaders from government, academia, industry, and civil society to address practical questions about technology governance.

On January 14, Deep Tech partnered with the Center for Cybersecurity Policy and Law (CCPL) and CrowdStrike for Secure AI Adoption for Public Entities: Lessons from North Carolina. The event brought together state representatives, government officials, Duke faculty and staff, and technical leaders to discuss how public entities can adopt AI securely and responsibly. The convening emphasized how public institutions are under pressure to adopt new technologies, but they need governance structures, cybersecurity practices, and the technical capacity to do so responsibly.

On January 22, 2026, Deep Tech co-sponsored the Distinguished Paladin Capital Cyber Policy Lecture featuring Dr. Einas Aleissa, Vice Minister of Education for Saudi Arabia. The event explored education as a driver of opportunity and social progress and Saudi Arabia’s efforts to place women at the center of digital transformation, leadership, and innovation. The evening also included a dinner keynote from Mike Steed, Founder and Managing Partner of Paladin Capital Group, who emphasized the importance of investing in women’s leadership and participation. Building the Next Knowledge System: Reflections on Saudi Arabia’s Educational Vision, published by the Tech Policy Program, further explored these themes.

Deep Tech also participated in Digital Summit Latam 2026, held in Madrid on February 26 and 27. The summit convened leaders from across Europe and Latin America to discuss the future of digital transformation, including but not limited to connectivity, digital infrastructure, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and cross-border partnerships. Deep Tech Program Coordinator Merritt Cahoon moderated “The Cybersecurity Imperative: Trust, Risk, and Protection in a Data-Driven World,” a session examining how cybersecurity, trust, and risk management are becoming central to digital transformation in a data-driven world.

On March 19, Duke, in partnership with the National Science Foundation (NSF), hosted the Federal-State Government Partnerships Summit: Opportunities for Innovation and Impact at Duke in DC. Public-sector, academic, and policy leaders came together to discuss how federal and state governments can collaborate on AI and workforce development.

On April 8, Deep Tech hosted The Infrastructure Imperative: AI’s Physical Foundation featuring Catherine Hunt Ryan, President of Manufacturing & Technology at Bechtel; Sharon Marcil, Managing Director and NAMR Chair at BCG; and Rebecca Kujawa, CEO of Zerra Partners and former CEO of NextEra. The conversation, moderated by Prof. David Hoffman, examined the systems required to build, finance, power, and scale the next generation of AI infrastructure. The discussion emphasized that AI does not solely exist in the realm of software, but is grounded in a physical reality involving data centers, power generation, cooling, water, permitting, construction timelines, and capital investment. Earlier in the day, Deep Tech convened a private AI Infrastructure Working Group, bringing together leaders from the public and private sectors to assess emerging challenges in AI infrastructure development and deployment, share research insights from Duke faculty, and strengthen cross-sector collaboration among academia, industry, and government.The meeting was headlined by opening remarks from Provost Alec Gallimore and a keynote from Bechtel’s President of Manufacturing and Technology, Catherine Hunt Ryan. You can read more about the insights from Hunt Ryan’s keynote in a blog by Lily Bermudez, "Not Your Grandfather's Data Center:" Reflections on Bechtel's Case for AI Infrastructure.

On June 2, Deep Tech partnered with the Duke Quantum Center to host Quantum vs. the Blockchain, a panel discussion featuring Adam Zalcman of Google Quantum AI and Duke professors Kartik Nayak and Lee Reiners. The event examined how advances in quantum computing could challenge the cryptographic foundations underlying blockchain systems and digital assets. Following a presentation by Zalcman on current developments in the field and the potential attack models against elliptic-curve cryptography, the panel turned to the broader policy implications, including the fate of abandoned digital assets, the possibility of black markets for quantum-enabled exploits, the role of post-quantum cryptography, and the national security consequences of the technology. The discussion connected technical expertise with governance questions that are increasingly important as quantum technologies continue to mature rapidly.

Curriculum/Student Research

Deep Tech’s student-centered work continued to expand this spring through new courses, public-facing research, and student projects.

In the classroom, Deep Tech and Sustainability, taught by Tim Profeta with Ian Hitchcock, gave students a structured way to examine how new technologies can support climate solutions while also creating new pressures through energy demand, water use, land use, and critical mineral needs. Deep Tech explored the policy and infrastructure implications of AI-driven energy demand in Unpacking President Trump’s Directive to Big Tech to Build Their Own Power Plants. This post shows that AI infrastructure is not only a national competitiveness issue, but has real implications for local planning, environmental sustainability, and public trust in the communities where these facilities are built.

The blog post Building the Future Through Curriculum: Deep Tech at Duke’s Expanding Course Suite highlighted the role of curriculum in preparing students to understand and shape emerging technologies and outlined Deep Tech’s growing slate of course offerings. Deep Tech’s courses span public policy, ethics, arts and humanities, finance, environmental policy, and technical questions.

Student projects this spring addressed a wide range of issues, including AI ethics, sovereignty, consumer neurotechnology, data governance, and the future of technology regulation. One project, Transnational AI Ethics and Singapore’s Position in International Ethical Fragmentation, examines Singapore’s potential role as a bridge in a fragmented global AI governance landscape. Part I surveys AI governance approaches in the United States, China, and the European Union, with Part II expected later this summer.

Other forthcoming projects include an AI Sovereignty Explainer, The EU AI Act: More Exception than the Rule?, and Governing Consumer Neural Data in the United States: A Snapshot of the Technology, Legal Landscape, and Policy Options. These projects illustrate how students are grappling with some of the central questions in emerging technology policy: who has control, who sets the rules, who benefits, and what legal frameworks are needed when technology moves faster than existing institutions.

Looking Ahead

As Deep Tech looks toward the summer and fall, its work will continue to expand across research, teaching, executive education, and public programming. This summer, Deep Tech will continue to support the Laidlaw Scholars Program through a Berlin-based research project exploring how communities are responding to AI deployment, including data center construction and AI integration across sectors, and how those responses are manifesting through art, public discourse, and community engagement. Deep Tech will also participate in executive education programming in Rio focused on digital sovereignty and AI capacity building as well as executive education work connected to the DigiAmericas Conference engaging with international partners on cybersecurity, AI governance, and digital policy.

The fall curriculum will include several major course offerings. Bass Connections: CHIPS Challenge – Technology, Policy, and the Global Supply Chain, led by David Hoffman and Merritt Cahoon, will focus on semiconductor supply chain resilience and policy. AI, Ethics & Creative Economic Policy, taught by David Hoffman with Liz Sparacino and Tift Merritt, will examine how AI is affecting creative industries and what policy responses may protect artists while encouraging innovation. AI & Financial Services Policy, taught by Lee Reiners, will explore how AI is reshaping lending, fraud detection, trading, compliance, consumer protection, and market integrity.

Deep Tech’s efforts this spring have brought issues across our five focus areas together through research, convenings, curriculum, and global partnerships. We look forward to continuing this work in the months ahead as we plan a range of fall programming tailored to students and professionals. If you would like to stay up to date, please email deeptech@duke.edu to join our listserv.