The Hoover Institution's Technology Policy Accelerator Awarded $2.5 Million Grant By the Hewlett Foundation to Research Vectors of Strategic Technological Surprise

STANFORD, Calif., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Hoover Institution's Technology Policy Accelerator program has been awarded a $2.5 million grant from the Hewlett Foundation to launch the Tech Futures Lab, an initiative designed to better anticipate potential strategic technological surprises and to help the United States strengthen resilience through improved planning and risk management.

The grant enables Hoover to pursue this crucial mission at a time when America faces a hinge-of-history moment. The many technological advances underway—from artificial intelligence and bioengineering to quantum technologies, energy innovations, and space capabilities—are accelerating the pace of change and introducing a new era of outsize possibilities and uncharted risks. China's increased technological competencies and the rapid diffusion of capabilities across borders are compounding uncertainty and increasing the chance of strategic shocks that could leave the United States at a disadvantage.

"Emerging technologies are bringing transformational change at record pace, and this is raising profound questions for societies and governments," said Condoleezza Rice, director of the Hoover Institution and the sixty-sixth US secretary of state. "The Hoover Institution is committed to rigorous, forward-looking research and cross-disciplinary collaboration to ensure these advances strengthen American leadership and resilience."

With the Hewlett Foundation's generous support, the Technology Policy Accelerator Tech Futures Lab will conduct state-of-the-art foresight exercises with researchers, innovators, investors, and government leaders to draw out new insights, identify vulnerabilities and opportunities, and develop strategies to mitigate risk while maximizing advantages. Its research, convening, and publishing activities will explore potential future trajectories and offer alternative—and sometimes contrarian—assessments of how emerging technologies could transform the world in unplanned and unexpected ways.

The Tech Futures Lab will harness the world-class scientific, technological, social science, and policy expertise from across Stanford University and the Hoover Institution, as well as draw on the deep knowledge of inventors, investors, and executives from the lab's home in Silicon Valley and beyond. It will offer experiential learning opportunities, including in-person scenario development and wargaming activities, and its participants will notably include private-sector leaders, not just government officials, to ensure a diverse set of viewpoints on key topics.

"Technological advances like those we're seeing with AI hold great promise while also posing novel security challenges," said Hewlett Foundation President Amber D. Miller. "We believe that civil society institutions like Hoover's new Tech Futures Lab can play an important role in the deployment of new technologies to help people and boost American competitiveness, while tackling vulnerabilities they create in our critical infrastructure."

The initiative will be co-led by Amy Zegart, the Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Herbert Lin, Hank J. Holland Fellow in Cyber Policy and Security. Hoover Distinguished Visiting Fellow Maria Langan-Riekhof will play an important role in developing the Tech Futures Lab. Langan-Riekhof brings more than three decades of experience in senior leadership roles in the US Intelligence Community, including spearheading the quadrennial Global Trends long-term forecast and leading the Central Intelligence Agency's legendary Red Cell unit, one of the most important intelligence innovations following the tragic 9/11 attacks. The unit was charged with challenging long-held assumptions, exploring alternative trajectories, and provoking new perspectives across the full range of national security issues.

"Too often, current policy discussions of technology risk are driven by fear, herd thinking, and evidence-free conjecture," said Amy Zegart. "As a result, policymakers and business leaders are more likely to get blindsided by technological surprise. Thanks to the Hewlett Foundation's grant, the Tech Futures Lab at Hoover can refine the debate, uncover new possibilities, and develop indicators and policy steps to mitigate the risks it identifies."

The Tech Futures Lab will complement and build on the work of the Stanford Emerging Technology Review, which recently launched its 2026 flagship report and is an ambitious educational effort for policymakers and business leaders led by the Hoover Institution, Stanford's School of Engineering, and the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI.

The Hewlett Foundation's grant will also support the Hoover Technology Policy Accelerator's annual Tech Track II convening, cochaired by Zegart and H.R. McMaster, the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at Hoover. Tech Track II fosters deep cooperation between US government leaders, technology executives, and distinguished academics on key challenges related to emerging technologies and national security, and seeks to inspire ideas and partnerships that reinforce US advantages critical to protecting liberal democratic values, fostering prosperity, and preserving peace worldwide.

For more information, please contact Jeffrey Marschner, assistant director of media and government relations, at [email protected].

TECHNOLOGY POLICY ACCELERATOR
The Hoover Institution's Technology Policy Accelerator (TPA) conducts research and develops insights that help government and business leaders better understand emerging technology and its geopolitical implications so they can seize opportunities, mitigate risks, and advance American interests and values.

HOOVER INSTITUTION
With its eminent scholars and world-renowned library and archives, the Hoover Institution seeks to improve the human condition by advancing ideas that promote economic opportunity and prosperity while securing and safeguarding peace for America and all mankind.

SOURCE Hoover Institution at Stanford University