The White House recently released details from the newly formulated Atlantic Declaration: A Framework for a Twenty-First Century U.S. – U.K. Economic Partnership. This innovative partnership focuses on various aspects, including synthetic biology, critical and emerging technologies, economic security, supply chain resilience, and climate change. Below are some of the highlights from the extensive partnership plan and how they could have an effect on the synbio community.

A Foundation for a New Economic Alliance

The Atlantic Declaration sets the stage for a new kind of economic alliance between the U.S. and the U.K., focusing on five key pillars:

1. Ensuring U.S. – U.K. leadership in critical and emerging technologies

2. Advancing ever-closer cooperation on economic security and technology protection toolkits and supply chains

3. Partnering on an inclusive and responsible digital transformation

4. Building the clean energy economy of the future

5. Further strengthening the alliance across defense, health security, and space

This partnership aims to address the pressing economic issues of our time, requiring joint leadership and imagination from both nations.
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Synthetic Biology: A Key Emerging Technology

One of the critical technologies highlighted in the Atlantic Declaration is synthetic biology. This innovative field can potentially revolutionize various industries, from healthcare to agriculture and environmental protection. By deepening cooperation on synthetic biology research and development, the U.S. and the U.K. are positioning themselves at the forefront of this emerging technology.

As part of the Atlantic Declaration, the U.S. and the U.K. plan to develop a joint work plan focused on driving public and private cooperation, exchanges, and joint research in synthetic biology. This collaboration aims to create novel applications, promote economic security, and improve supply chain pathways for biomanufacturing and biotechnologies.

The joint work plan will include various initiatives to advance synthetic biology research and development, such as:

• Supporting collaborative research projects and academic exchanges,

• Fostering public-private partnerships to accelerate the development and commercialization of synthetic biology innovations,

• Sharing best practices and lessons learned from each country's synthetic biology initiatives, and

• Encouraging international collaboration and knowledge-sharing in synthetic biology
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Critical and Emerging Technologies in the U.S.- U.K. Partnership

In addition to synthetic biology, the Atlantic Declaration emphasizes other critical and emerging technologies, such as semiconductors, quantum technologies, artificial intelligence, and cutting-edge telecommunications. The U.S. and the U.K. are committed to ensuring continued leadership in these sectors by collaborating on research and development, deepening public-private dialogue, mobilizing private capital, and improving reciprocal talent flows.

The Atlantic Declaration outlines several joint efforts in critical technologies, including:

• Pursuing quantum technology initiatives to address fundamental research questions and promote researcher and student mobility

• Cementing leadership in cutting-edge telecommunications by supporting joint projects and technical activity in innovative 5G and 6G solutions

• Exploring collaborative research and development in advanced semiconductor technologies

• Accelerating cooperation on artificial intelligence, focusing on ensuring its safe and responsible development
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Strengthening Economic Security and Technology Protection

The Atlantic Declaration also emphasizes the importance of enhancing economic security and technology protection. The U.S. and the U.K. aim to update and align their regulatory frameworks related to export controls, investment screening, sanctions, and research and development security to prevent the leakage of sensitive and dual-use technologies.

Both nations recognize the need to address the national security risks posed by certain types of outbound investments. As such, they are committed to ensuring that their respective toolkits are adequately equipped to prevent capital and expertise from fueling technological advances that could enhance the military and intelligence capabilities of countries of concern.

The partnership aims to ensure flexible and coordinated export controls to address evolving challenges in the rapidly shifting technological landscape. The U.S. and the U.K. will also strengthen their world-leading partnership across sanctions strategy, design, targeting, implementation, and enforcement, focusing on sanctions evasion and jointly targeting those facilitating illegal activities.
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Inclusive and Responsible Digital Transformation

The Atlantic Declaration highlights the importance of partnering on an inclusive and responsible digital transformation. The partnership will focus on enhancing cooperation on data, accelerating collaboration on artificial intelligence, and deepening collaboration on privacy-enhancing technologies.

The U.S. and the U.K. are committed to facilitating trusted and secure data flows between their countries while ensuring strong privacy protections. They also plan to accelerate their cooperation on AI safety, with the U.S. welcoming the U.K.'s plans to launch the first Global Summit on AI Safety and committing to attend at a high level.

Both nations recognize the need to protect individuals' privacy and democratic principles while harnessing the power of data. They plan to launch a Collaboration on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) to enable more valuable insights from data and train responsible AI models.
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Building a Clean Energy Economy

The Atlantic Declaration emphasizes the importance of building a clean energy economy for the future, focusing on meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement and investing in clean energy supply chains. The partnership aims to align approaches to make clean energy technologies more affordable for all nations and help drive a global, just, and secure energy transition that leaves no one behind.

The U.S. and the U.K. plan to launch negotiations on a Critical Minerals Agreement to ensure consistency in supply chain diversification and robust labor and environmental standards for electric vehicles. They will also develop a Joint Clean Energy Supply Chain Action Plan to identify and decide on near-term actions to accelerate clean energy capacity building.

The partnership includes launching a Civil Nuclear Partnership to promote the safe, secure, and sustainable international deployment of advanced, peaceful nuclear technologies. The U.S. and the U.K. are also committed to deepening their collaboration on space sustainability and regulations, sharing best practices, and exploring opportunities for cooperation on space nuclear power and propulsion.

The Atlantic Declaration represents a significant step forward in the U.S.-UK economic partnership, with synthetic biology being one of the key technologies at the forefront of this alliance. By working together on research and development, economic security, digital transformation, clean energy, and other critical areas, both nations are paving the way for a prosperous and secure future that benefits their citizens and the world.