Modern mobile robots are networked systems. Equipped with cameras, sensors, onboard computers, and wireless communications, they can observe and record the factories, warehouses, homes, and public spaces in which they operate. In July 2026, the United States (U.S.) Federal Communications Commission (FCC) added foreign-produced advanced robotic devices, including mobile humanoids and quadrupeds, to its Covered List, blocking new equipment authorization for these products.  The ruling responds to genuine security concerns. But it also brings into focus how heavily the U.S. robotics research base depends on the very supply chains it is designed to restrict. A critical gap has been brought to light by this ruling: U.S. robotics researchers rely heavily […]

The Computing Community Consortium’s (CCC) latest report, Beyond Code: Engineering Trustworthy Software Systems with AI at Scale, takes up the question of what has to change in software engineering once implementation is largely automated. With adoption of AI coding tools now reported at 84% to 90% of developers, much of the work shifts to specifying, verifying, and maintaining what AI produces. This report, however, documents a widening gap between what AI-assisted development is expected to deliver and what these systems can currently do — as well as between the sheer amount of code being generated and the current ability to verify it. The report presents a way forward for closing […]

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is excited to release a new key recommendations brief drawn from the recent Computing on the Fly: Navigating a Vision for the Future of Drone Computing report. The report lays out a vision for non-military drone infrastructure by 2035 and identifies twelve technical challenges standing in the way. This brief, Key Recommendations for the Future of Drone Computing, outlines the next steps, translating those challenges into specific actions for the four computing communities whose decisions will determine whether that vision is met: scientific funders, policymakers, industry, and academia. Action is urgent to realize the full potential of non-military drones. The report establishes milestones for 2028, […]

In a new workshop report published by the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), Computing on the Fly: Navigating a Vision for the Future of Drone Computing, experts across academia, industry, and government assess the potential of AI-powered drones for non-military use by 2035 and identify the critical barriers standing between today’s capabilities and that future. The report envisions a decade in which drones move goods, medical supplies, and information at a scale comparable to national infrastructure investments like highways and the electric grid. Potential applications include natural disaster detection drones that spot wildfire sources within minutes, medical supply chains that bypass ground congestion to reach rural hospitals, and nationwide fleets that […]

The Computing Community Consortium’s (CCC) latest report, Grand Challenges for the Convergence of Computational and Citizen Science Research, lays out the potential of citizen science research and advanced computing technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), when brought together, to revolutionize the contemporary scientific research landscape. Co-authors Lucy Fortson (University of Minnesota), Lea Shanley (International Computer Science Institute and GNIES, University of Wisconsin-Madison), Tanya Berger-Wolf (The Ohio State University), Kevin Crowston (Syracuse University), Haley Griffin (Computing Research Association), Corey Jackson (University of Wisconsin-Madison), and Saiph Savage (Northeastern University) also demonstrate the broader applications of this union for challenges across ecological, infrastructural, clinical, and other domains — plus how to make it a […]

As artificial intelligence (AI) has become increasingly ubiquitous across domains, the need for it to be reliably secure has only grown. Yet in many ways, ensuring the security of AI agents is fundamentally different from the cybersecurity challenges of the past. To address this growing challenge, the U.S. Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI), housed within the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) at the Department of Commerce, released a Request for Information (RFI) on practices and methodologies for measuring and improving the secure development and deployment of AI agent systems. The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) and Computing Research Association (CRA) recently submitted a response to this RFI, […]