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IFP Update: October 2026

IFP

While the dust settles after a seismic midterm election, it’s time to turn our attention back to policy. Last month, we saw a sweeping permitting deal draft land in the Senate, and both chambers will now work feverishly to pass the bill in the lame duck session. Our team has also been digging into the costs of proposed fees on international graduates, and published research on some near-term moves for extending America’s lead in AI.

We’re hiring for an editor (at the associate, editor, or senior level) and a graphic designer/data visualization artist, both based in DC. Know someone who would be a good fit? Please send them our way — we offer a referral bonus ($3k for the design role and $5k for the editorial role)!

✍️ Policy Work

Remote access restrictions are the most effective way to limit China's AI chip access through 2027
To train their models, China's AI companies rely heavily on AI chips they access remotely in data centers abroad. Chart shows China's end of 2027 AI compute by source, in H100-eq. Gray is the proportion the US has no realistic way of limiting access to.

  • How to Increase America’s AI Lead Over China. Tim Fist, Georgia Adamson, and Konstantin Pilz estimate that the current US AI lead over China is only about six months, but that this could be doubled by the end of 2027 using existing federal authorities. Recommended actions include restricting China’s ability to access AI computing power remotely through the cloud, and enabling AI companies to collaborate to combat adversarial distillation.

  • How the Permitting Deal Works. Aidan Mackenzie walks through the entire permitting deal. The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA) covers 12 policy areas, from transmission and grid interconnection to environmental review, mining, and geothermal energy. This explainer describes both the problems targeted by the bill and what would change if it becomes law.

    • Arnab Datta led the effort to publish a letter from 19 former economic-policy and national-security officials urging Congress to pass BAAJA. The signers served six presidents from both parties and include Janet Yellen, Steven Mnuchin, Mike Pompeo, Leon Panetta, Stephen Miran and Jason Furman.

    • The Wall Street Journal covered the former officials’ permitting letter. Axios also covered it and spoke with Arnab about the effort.

  • DHS’s $100k Fee on STEM OPT Would Break High-Skilled Immigration. DHS’s proposed fees on Optional Practical Training would charge universities $70,000 for an initial OPT recommendation and $30,000 for a STEM extension. Violet Buxton-Walsh, Patrick Collard, Jeremy Neufeld, Amy Nice, Connor O’Brien, and Ryan Redmer explain why the proposal would shrink America’s talent pipeline and harm American workers in the process.

  • Our Transit Abundance Playbook has a new look! The collection brings together 15 ideas to reduce costs and speed project delivery, now with new artwork to help explain how we can build better transit.

📰 Media

  • The New York Times quoted Arnab Datta on the bipartisan permitting negotiations.

  • Heatmap spoke with Ben Schifman about how the bill would constrain executive action.

  • NBC News spoke with Jenn Gustetic about international interest in metascience and using evidence to improve how science is funded and organized.

  • TIME cited our international-student survey and Jeremy Neufeld’s response to the proposed OPT fees. Nature and Inside Higher Ed quoted Violet Buxton-Walsh in their coverage of the proposal and the program’s economic effects.

  • Puck quoted Arthur Tellis on the government’s capacity to oversee advanced AI, citing his coauthored analysis estimating that CAISI needs at least $84 million annually to fulfill its AI readiness responsibilities.

  • Politico’s Morning Tech led its October 21 edition with our report on America’s AI lead. Tim Fist discussed why restrictions on advanced chips and measures against adversarial model distillation need to work together.

  • The Dispatch quoted Brian Potter on the boom in data center construction.

  • BAAJA Will Unlock Cheaper and Faster Transportation Projects. In Eno Transportation Weekly, Stephanie Pollack makes the case that BAAJA would speed safety improvements, repairs, and locally led projects. She explains how the bill would reduce procedural barriers to those projects while preserving environmental review for highway capacity expansions.

  • Jenn Gustetic joined a panel at AEI’s “Toward a New Golden Age of Science” event on October 20, following a conversation with OSTP Director Michael Kratsios.

  • Olivia Scharfman joined OpenAI Forum’s “Biodefense in the AI Age” panel to discuss how AI could strengthen biothreat detection and advance medical countermeasures development, as well as the safeguards needed alongside bio-capable models.

🎙️ Statecraft by Santi Ruiz

  • Caleb Watney on Philanthropy and AI Policy. Santi Ruiz and guest co-host Leah Libresco Sargeant, IFP’s editorial director, are joined by IFP co-founder Caleb Watney, now at Coefficient Giving. They discuss how philanthropy can support better AI policy right now, how to build institutions that adapt to rapid technological change, the role of Congress, and when it makes sense to leave your job to work on AI.

🏗️ Construction Physics by Brian Potter

  • Understanding the AI That Drives Robots. Brian builds up our understanding of neural networks, from simple systems that predict text tokens to the vision-language-action models that turn language and images into physical actions.

  • The Rise and Fall of the Plasma Screen. Before describing how plasma screens lost their hold on the global market, Brian brings us back to where it all started: the University of Illinois’ PLATO computer system.

  • How to Train Your Robot. Where will the data for AI-driven robots come from? Brian teaches us where it comes from now (teleoperation, simulation, and learning from human activity) and explains how training robots presents a set of obstacles distinct from training language models.

  • A New Kind of Chemistry. Brian explains how we find or produce isotopes today, and takes a look at how fusion could enable more abundant isotope production, from medical imaging and cancer treatments to nuclear batteries and materials with unusual properties.

🏭 Factory Settings

  • Statutory Authorities Are Mere Table Stakes. Digging into one of the “& Science” programs in the CHIPS & Science Act, Eric Smith draws on his experience building the Tech Hubs program. Eric explains how effective implementation takes more than statutory enablement: it requires funding, capable people, and an organizational culture that lets a program fulfill its promise.

🔬 Macroscience by Andrew Gerard

👋 Tweet for the Road

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