America’s strength in national security comes from our scientists’ collective brainpower and innovation—and the funding/freedom to pursue cutting-edge work. This is what makes cuts to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) jobs and funding for the U.S. National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), National Institutes of Health, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and science-rich universities (Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Maine) throughout the country so frustrating.
Let’s address the elephant in the room: We’re watching a real-time assault on U.S. national security. Eliminating federal science jobs and funding ultimately hands U.S. adversaries a gift. It’s time for the science community to act.
The idea that the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act is now under attack is puzzling. This $53B bipartisan legislation funds reshoring the American semiconductor industry and its supply chains to manufacture 30% of the world’s leading-edge logic and DRAM chips here by 2032.
Why? Other nations have made it crystal clear they view semiconductors as a top national security issue and are building entirely self-sustaining supply chains for their semiconductor industries to ensure they can’t be locked out of the market or have their national security interests held up.
Semiconductors are essential for national security and at the core of everything. The U.S. Department of Defense uses them in its hypersonic weapons, drones, and satellites, but semiconductors are vulnerable to supply chain disruptions (which we encountered during COVID).
The U.S. has everything to lose by relinquishing its role as one of the world’s STEM leaders—and absolutely nothing to gain. Women, underrepresented minorities, and immigrants within STEM deserve our immense respect and gratitude for the myriad ways they contribute.
As part of a community steeped in science, are you going to allow the ongoing attack to continue? Why pretend this is normal? It’s dangerously wrong.
FURTHER READING
- https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/technology/trump-chips-act.html
- https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00704-0
- https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00550-0
- https://www.nist.gov/chips
- https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00812-x
- https://www.science.org/content/article/u-s-early-career-researchers-struggling-amid-chaos
- https://www.npr.org/2025/02/18/nx-s1-5301049/national-science-foundation-fires-roughly-10-of-its-workforce
- https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/as-noaa-braces-for-more-cuts-scientists-say-public-safety-is-at-risk#:~:text=NOAA%20is%20now%20tasked%20with,person%20workforce%20would%20be%20cut.
- https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/03/nih-grant-terminations/682039
- https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00756-2
- https://www.computerworld.com/article/3832885/reported-cuts-at-nist-imperil-semiconductor-reshoring-plans-in-the-us.html
Sally Cole Johnson | Editor in Chief
Sally Cole Johnson, Laser Focus World’s editor in chief, is a science and technology journalist who specializes in physics and semiconductors. She wrote for the American Institute of Physics for more than 15 years, complexity for the Santa Fe Institute, and theoretical physics and neuroscience for the Kavli Foundation.