The overlap between applicants and recipients of the three large regional innovation approaches attempted by the federal government so far continues with the July 9, 2025, NSF narrowing of the field for the second NSF Regional Innovation Engines competition to 29 semifinalists across the country. Predominantly with teams led by universities and university affiliates (25 of the 29 selections), the contenders include 17 NSF Engines Development Awards teams who received two-year planning grants in 2023 and early 2024 that they leveraged to help build coalitions and refine visions for dynamic innovation ecosystems within their regions. It also includes regions that have served as EDA Tech Hubs designees, Tech Hub winners, and recipients of Building Better Regions Phase I and/or Phase II awards.

Seventy-one teams engaged in this round of the competition. One may view a map of the 29 new NSF Engines semifinalists here.

Please note: this article is not intended as a comprehensive review of Public Law No. 119-21, nor should our reading of the law be treated as tax or legal advice.

Now that the dust has settled on the federal budget reconciliation package, Public Law No: 119-21, SSTI presents to its Digest readership our look at the legislation from a technology-based economic development (TBED) perspective. The process nuances, potential fiscal impacts, and broad policy changes of the 870-page act have been extensively covered elsewhere, so we won’t rehash those here. Instead, we will focus on a few key highlights of changes to the tax code and what those could mean for TBED activities.

Over the past 40 years, many people involved in SBIR and empirical analysts in the research, finance, and technology sectors have said SBIR awardees, as a group, are uniquely important for America’s innovation goals. Research presented in a recent NBER working paper provides further evidence backing up those claims and reveals SBIR companies may be preferable for innovation productivity and efficiency—particularly for advancing strategic national, social and environmental goals—to innovation-oriented companies simply backed by venture capital, the finance instrument most often tracked for evidence of innovation success or progress.

SSTI has updated its Key Technology Area Investment Data Tool with new and refreshed data spanning January 1, 2013, through June 30, 2025. The tool comprises two interactive visuals and uses Pitchbook technology verticals selected to align with many of the key technology focus areas (KTFAs) defined in the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 (CHIPS). The tool breaks down the number of investment-backed companies, investment deals, and amount of capital invested by each state, year (2013-2025H1), and investment stage (e.g., seed, angel, venture).

For this update, data through June 30, 2025, were downloaded on July 1, 2025, and built into the provided visualizations on the data tool webpage.

Note that because many investment deals are not subject to disclosure, it is difficult to immediately identify investment activity, often leading to data for more recent years being less complete. This potential for incomplete data is a critical issue to consider when exploring data from the first half of 2025 and other recent periods.

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is requesting information from the public to help shape potential future updates to its Key Technology Focus Areas (KTFAs). NSF’s KTFAs directly influence and shape innovation- and economic development-related programs. For example, KTFAs have been important factors in the Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) Regional Technology and Innovation Hubs (Tech Hubs) and NSF’s Regional Innovation Engines (Engines) programs which require regions to advance a critical technology area that already has traction in their region.

In 2024, nearly 628,000 job postings demanded at least one AI skill, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s Center for Workforce and Economic Opportunity. The research also revealed that the percentage of all job postings requiring at least one AI skill increased from approximately 0.5% in 2010 to 1.7% in 2024. These numbers, however, do not inform workforce development practitioners or workers selecting training programs about which levels of education produce the most in-demand workers entering the AI-dominated workforce, nor do they indicate which occupations at what level of educational attainment have increasing demand for these skills. To provide these insights, the Fed researchers conducted an examination of the growth in employer demand for AI skills, analyzing online job posting data from 2010 to 2024. 

Patents serve as a powerful tool that promotes the disclosure and diffusion of new innovations while allowing inventors an exclusive period to commercialize and profit from the technology. The U.S., while a hub for innovation and a leader in patents, has experienced stagnation in the growth of Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications and USPTO-granted utility patents in recent years. Ever since 2021, China has surpassed the U.S. in PCT applications, and more than half of all USPTO utility patents are owned by foreign entities, including Japan and the European Union. 

This edition of Useful Stats explores U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and PCT patent data compiled from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics and data from the Business Enterprise R&D (BERD) survey. These data provide a background for how the patent landscape across the U.S. has changed over the past few decades.