Cutting NIST’s Workforce Threatens American Tech Innovation and Leadership

America’s technology prowess is built on its people, but Washington is terminating many of the researchers and engineers driving U.S. progress in AI, quantum technology, advanced manufacturing, and semiconductors. On April 2, 21 Democratic lawmakers urged Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to halt proposed workforce cuts at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). At a time when cyber threats are escalating, gutting NIST means giving way for America’s rivals to undermine U.S. leadership in technology.

A Weakened NIST Means a Weakened Innovation Strategy

The proposed plan would slash NIST’s workforce by 20 percent, or up to 500 probationary staff. The cuts follow the Trump administration’s push for government-wide terminations of recent hires. Already, 73 of NIST’s probationary staff have been laid off — more than half of whom were hired under the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 to expand the agency’s role in emerging technologies like AI, quantum, and advanced manufacturing. This legislation tasked NIST with implementing the bill’s $50 billion in semiconductor manufacturing and research investments. Now that mission is at risk.

While the Trump administration frames the cuts as cost-saving measures, they come with steep tradeoffs. In their letter, congressional leaders warned that the layoffs could trigger a “brain drain” across partner universities in Maryland and Colorado, jeopardizing the skilled workforce pipeline NIST helped build. The lawmakers also noted that “every federal dollar” invested in such programs generates nine times its value in economic output — returns that are critical to competitiveness in both economic and national security domains.

Public Safety Is at Stake

NIST’s contributions include the Cybersecurity Framework, regarded globally as the gold standard for managing cyber risk. NIST also leads on AI safety through its AI Risk Management Framework, a foundational tool developed in response to a 2019 executive order to help organizations address algorithmic bias, system resilience, and misuse.

Furthermore, NIST’s skilled staff are responsible for updating standards in response to emerging threats. Through its ongoing publications and updates, NIST provides regulators with clear directives to spot risks early and hold companies accountable for building systems that are safe, secure, and honest by design. All this work is now in jeopardy.

Industry Warns of Slipping Strategic Ground

The private sector is also sounding the alarm. In a separate letter to Secretary Lutnick, key tech trade associations emphasized that investment in NIST ensures “technical excellence” and enables American industry to shape the global standards that govern innovation. The associations also highlighted NIST’s “light-touch, non-regulatory” approach, which has fostered trusted public-private collaboration while protecting national interests. They emphasized that this model, shaped with industry input, has helped American companies lead globally. But this only works if NIST has the skilled workforce to sustain it.

Other coalitions of AI and cybersecurity experts echoed the trade associations in their own letters, calling AI a “strategic national resource” and describing NIST’s cybersecurity work as a “prime example of American leadership.”

Congress is already considering new tools to strengthen NIST’s long-term capacity. Republican and Democrat lawmakers in both chambers reintroduced a bill on April 1 to create a nonprofit foundation that would boost public-private collaboration, accelerate commercialization, and help NIST keep pace with adversaries like China on global standards.

U.S. Should Reinstate the Workforce to Secure the Future Technology Ecosystem

The administration should reinstate the affected NIST staff, and appropriators must ensure adequate funding to support the agency’s core mission. In 2022, Congress gave NIST the mandate and resources through the CHIPS and Science Act to lead on upholding a free, open, and interoperable technology ecosystem. It is now Congress’s responsibility to protect the mission it created. Without these resources, Washington risks losing ground to strategic competitors like China, which is aggressively promoting its own standards in international fora. Reducing NIST’s capacity risks fragmenting global compliance, giving authoritarian regimes leverage to set the terms of future technologies.

Jiwon Ma is a senior policy analyst at the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation (CCTI) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Rohannah Shrestha is a CCTI intern and a recent graduate of New York University with a Master of Science in global security, conflict, and cybercrime. For more analysis from the authors and CCTI, please subscribe HERE. Follow Jiwon on X @jiwonma_92. Follow FDD on X @FDD and @FDD_CCTI. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.