Promoting United States Leadership in Standards Act of 2024
Senator Mark Warner & Senator Marsha Blackburn
Background
For many decades, the United States’ leadership in developing new technologies allowed our
nation to set the rules of the road when it came to those technologies’ global standards. Several
years ago, things started to change. In the wireless space, Chinese companies like Huawei and
ZTE – backed by the financial might of the Chinese government – started flooding the zone
when it came to standards setting bodies. This allowed them to influence standards in ways that
benefited their companies and furthered their interests.
Standards-setting bodies make critical decisions not only around the technical specifications, but
also around the values, such as openness, safety, and accessibility, embedded in emerging
technologies. A 2022 report on the China’s impact on international standards found that China
has attempted to steer the standardization of emerging technology areas by heavily increasing
their number of participants and standards proposals.
Summary
In response to the concerns about diminishing U.S. leadership in international standards setting
activities, this bill aims to improve visibility into standards setting related to emerging
technologies and increase U.S. participation in these critical activities. This bill focuses on
standards development for AI and other Critical and Emerging Technologies (CETs), a list
defined by the Office of Science and Technology Policy. The four-part bill would:
1. Require NIST to submit a report to Congress that identifies current U.S. participation in
standards development activities for AI and other CETs.
2. Create an easy-to-access web portal to help stakeholders navigate and actively engage in
international standardization efforts. The portal would include a list of relevant standards
and information about how to participate in standardization activities related to AI and
other CETs.
3. Establish a pilot program to award $10 million in grants over 4 years to support the
hosting of standards meetings for AI and other CETs in the U.S.
4. Create a report to Congress, after the third year of the program, that identifies grant
recipients, provides a summary of expenses, assesses the effectiveness of the program to
grow the number of standards meetings in the U.S, and shows the geographic distribution
of event attendees.
