The Institute for Security and Technology (IST) is pleased to announce the inaugural cohort of the Andrew Carnegie AI-Nuclear Policy Accelerator—a program that will equip mid-career security practitioners with the tools to confront the intersection between AI and nuclear issues. Selected from a highly competitive pool of over 100 applicants, the cohort spans the U.S. military, several U.S. government civilian agencies, national laboratories, federally funded research and development centers, international organizations, civil society, academia, and philanthropy—and includes nationals of six countries.
These are not observers of nuclear policy. They are the people doing it.
Members of the first cohort brief senior generals on nuclear weapon system capabilities and policy options. They led nuclear modernization programs and are building the decision-support tools behind the simultaneous recapitalization of all three legs of the U.S. nuclear triad. They evaluate intercontinental ballistic missile crews and are exploring AI integration into operations. They have operated inside the command structures, decision timelines, and coalition environments—from the western Pacific to the Pentagon.
They serve as the United States’ representative to NATO’s nuclear advisory committee, and as Committee Secretary to the NATO Nuclear Planning Group. They personally brief and advise senior leaders including the NATO Secretary General, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, and U.S. Under Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Security. They manage the secure communication lines between the United States and its interlocutors at the Department of State’s National and Nuclear Risk Reduction Center.
They manage multi-million dollar portfolios to reduce weapons-usable nuclear material worldwide and lead the Department of Homeland Security’s nuclear detection and forensics policy efforts. They develop monitoring and verification technologies for future arms control agreements at the National Nuclear Security Administration and are shaping the ethical frameworks governing AI adoption in International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear safeguards. They design wargaming scenarios that stress-test nuclear escalation dynamics for senior defense leadership. They conduct compelling research at the national laboratories.
They draft unified messaging for national delegations to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and United Nations First Committee. They lead military AI governance dialogues at the UN, advise members of Congress on AI-nuclear risks, and direct philanthropic grantmaking that funds research across the AI-nuclear intersection. They research how the international community builds, sustains, and enforces the rules governing nuclear weapons, and they teach the next generation to do the same. They conduct technical research on AI and satellite remote sensing for nuclear weapons monitoring, producing the science that underpins future verification regimes.
In short, the inaugural cohort is made up of precisely the practitioners who need to understand AI and whose daily work means their participation will make an impact. Led by IST Senior Fellow for Nuclear Policy Sahil V. Shah and with the support of Carnegie Corporation of New York, the inaugural Accelerator cohort will attend an in-person, technical immersion program in the San Francisco Bay Area, participate in applied policy labs, and learn about both the challenges and opportunities that lie at the intersection of AI and nuclear issues.
