Decision Tree Research is an independent research and analysis firm that specializes in strategic technologies, public policy, and geopolitics.
“Allen has been a must-read.”
“Very much at the center of the formulation of current U.S. policy.”
“The most-watched U.S. analyst on the subject.”
Subscribe to Gregory C. Allen’s newsletter for timely, evidence-based analysis of the big policy debates in AI, semiconductors, and defense tech.
Our areas of focus
AI capability has become a measure of national power and a geopolitical race for superiority. The competition covers frontier model development, U.S.–China rivalry, industrial policy, export controls, military integration, and the international safety and governance architecture forming around them.
Chips have become the new oil. The contest for silicon supply chain security spans advanced chips, the equipment and materials that produce them, and the export controls and industrial policy reshaping the global industry.
The defense industrial base is being rewritten by a new generation of commercial AI and space firms. Military AI, autonomous weapons, drones, and the commercial space revolution are reshaping the strategic balance.
Featured research
How Big Is China’s Reported DUV Semiconductor Lithography Breakthrough?
China’s first domestically produced immersion DUV lithography tools are real — but the breakthrough is smaller than the drop in ASML’s share price implied, and bigger than China’s official silence suggests.
Four keys to understanding the future of AI and unemployment
A data-driven crash course in the most illuminating historical analogies for AI and employment — from farm mechanization and the fate of the horse to the economics of music and chess.
How Much Did U.S. Semiconductor Export Controls Accelerate China’s Push for Self-Sufficiency?
In terms of Chinese government subsidies, not at all: investment data shows a semiconductor self-sufficiency push that was already running at full speed before U.S. export controls arrived.
From The AI Power Podcast
Weekly episodes on AI policy, semiconductors, and the U.S.–China technology competition — hosted by Gregory C. Allen.
The OpenAI Hack Changes the State AI Regulation Debate — Plus Chinese AI on Chinese Chips?
OpenAI and METR both published detailed reports on July’s Hugging Face incident — coordinated group action among the 700 agents involved — and OpenAI is now calling for collective cyber defense and an update to California’s SB 53. Greg and Adam compare the state AI laws taking shape in California, New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts, then dig into Z.ai’s cheap, efficient GLM-5.3 Flash and its claim to run inference on “Chinese” AI chips.
Listen →AI’s Impact on Education — with Casey Cuny, California’s 2024 Teacher of the Year
Greg sits down with Casey Cuny, California’s 2024 Teacher of the Year and a self-described AI power user, for a ground-level look at what AI is actually doing in the classroom. They cover the challenges facing today’s students, why with homework “if it goes home, it will be AI’d,” the AI app Casey built for teachers, and the education recommendations policymakers most need to hear.
Listen →OpenAI Slows Training, Taiwan Gets AI-Hacked, and Toxic Data-Center Politics
Labs have delayed releasing a model before, but OpenAI’s August 17 post is the first time one has slowed down building one — a two-week pause on RL training that puts its largest frontier run on hold. Then an Israeli security firm’s account of an autonomous AI attack on Taiwan’s nuclear safety agency: four days, 1,395 files, 85 cracked credentials, and Chinese-language code-switching in the operational documentation. Plus Beijing’s H200 reversal and the roughly 500,000 chips now bound for Chinese buyers, a leaked State Department letter telling 35 Pax Silica signatories that “to be part of everything is to be part of nothing,” and the NRSC memo that has Greg retiring his own year-old line about data-center opposition being sandbags against a tsunami.
Listen →Why “Decision Tree”?
The decision tree is one of the most useful analytical tools in three disciplines that rarely meet: Machine Learning & AI, Corporate Strategy, and Government Policy Analysis.
In machine learning, the decision tree is foundational to how models classify and predict. In business strategy, it structures operations planning, capital allocation, and risk decisions. In policy analysis, it maps the consequences of regulation, sanctions, and other interventions through complex systems.
Gregory C. Allen’s career has spanned all three. The firm’s name signals the methodology that runs through the work: enumerate the decisions, trace the branches honestly, find the paths that carry the most consequence, and reason rigorously before acting. Decision Tree Research applies that discipline to our analysis of the technologies shaping global power competition.
Built on a body of work
Before founding Decision Tree Research, Gregory C. Allen authored some of the most impactful analysis in U.S. AI policy — at CSIS, the Department of Defense Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, the Center for a New American Security, and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School.