Welcome to Decision Tree
AI + semiconductors + defense tech policy
Hi, I’m Gregory C. Allen, and this is the newsletter from Decision Tree Research — the independent research firm I founded this spring. A quick word on what you can expect.
I’ve spent more than a decade working on AI, semiconductor, and defense tech policy. Across all that time, one pattern keeps showing up. The public version of an export controls action, an AI regulation fight, or a U.S.–China technology dispute is usually three or four analytical steps removed from what’s actually going on. The headlines reflect the press conference. The substance lives in the footnotes — in the corporate financial filings, the Chinese state-media coverage, and the procurement and budget documents that are mostly public but mostly unread.
Decision Tree is where I write down what I find when I do that close reading and number crunching, plus drawing upon a global network of smart folks I’ve met over years of doing this.
A few specifics on how I plan to do this.
The publishing pace will be set by the analysis, not the news cycle. I’ll publish when I have something to say that’s worth your time, and not before. AI policy is awash in takes. What’s in short supply is patient reading and careful work. That will probably be every one or two weeks.
My focus is the geopolitics of strategic technologies, broadly drawn. That covers U.S. export controls on advanced semiconductors and the AI systems they enable. It covers frontier-model policy (including safety, regulation, and economics), the defense industrial base, and the U.S.–China contest over compute and chip equipment. It also covers the harder long-run questions — where the next generation of leading AI labs and fabs get built. Subjects rotate, because the debate does. The same factories, ministries, and labs usually matter for several topics at once.
Hit reply to any issue, or write to contact@decisiontreeresearch.com. I read both. If you’d rather hear me than read me, I host weekly episodes of The AI Power Podcast.
Welcome. Glad you’re here.
— Gregory C. Allen, Founder and CEO, Decision Tree Research