The White House has officially removed data storage systems and data centers from the U.S. list of critical technologies, streamlining export controls and foreign investment reviews for related hardware and facilities.
The White House has removed high-performance data storage and datacenters from the list of “Critical and Emerging Technologies,” a designation that informs a range of federal policies, including export controls and research and development priorities.
Artificial intelligence, quantum computing, photonics, cybersecurity, and advanced networking technologies remain firmly on the list, alongside ongoing concerns regarding data transfers that could benefit adversarial nations. This adjustment follows an update to the US National Security Science & Technology Strategy, which aims to underpin “the nation’s economic security, science, research, and innovation to support the national security strategy.” As the document’s overview states, it “focuses on S&T competition as it relates to military capabilities, homeland defense and resilience, and other direct intersections with national security.”
The strategy directly guides federal decisions on R&D funding allocations, partnerships with commercial organizations and allied nations, workforce planning, immigration policy, and the regulation of exports for critical and dual-use technologies. It identifies “potentially transformative technology,” including artificial intelligence and autonomy; biotechnology; and quantum information technologies, noting their profound implications for sensing, communications, computing, and information security. Unsurprisingly, the document emphasizes the goal to “keep foreign adversaries out of critical technology systems and supply chains.”
To achieve this, the strategy advocates “prioritizing homeshoring and domestic product development, which the Trump Administration is advancing by promoting balanced trade, facilitating reindustrialization, unleashing energy dominance, advancing novel material substitution for critical components, and working with suppliers from trusted partners.” It further directs that “relevant agencies should use available authorities to protect against adversary efforts to access and exploit critical technology systems and supply chains, including communications and networking systems.” Additionally, the update calls for modernizing “foreign investment screening and security” while strengthening and streamlining “export controls and data transfer restrictions.”
At the core of the strategy is a catalog of “critical and emerging technologies” deemed either currently or potentially “critically important to US national security.” Artificial intelligence and autonomy receive extensive coverage, expanded to twelve categories from ten in the previous iteration. A side-by-side comparison highlights how rapidly the field has evolved; notably, the term “agent” did not appear in the prior version. Conversely, the earlier strategy’s advanced computing section has been entirely removed. That former category encompassed high-performance data storage and datacenters, advanced cloud services, and data processing and analytic techniques. In fact, the word “datacenter” does not appear anywhere in the updated strategy.
Instead, “data management, including storage and security” now falls under the revised information management and cybersecurity category. Similarly, the communications and networking section covers next-generation wireless, optical, and fiber technologies, while the future computing technologies list features photonics, supercomputing, and brain-computer interfaces.
Does this reclassification mean datacenters and storage are no longer considered critical technologies warranting government oversight and control? Datacenters undoubtedly remain vital national infrastructure for the United States, its allies, and its adversaries. However, with key components such as SSDs and RAM growing increasingly scarce—and with top manufacturers largely based in Western-aligned nations—Washington may be leaning on pricing power rather than regulatory hard power to maintain strategic leverage. For now.