The US National Security State and Big Tech: frenemy relations and innovation planning in turbulent times*

I analyze the relation between what Weiss (2014) dubbed the United States National Security State (US NSS) and US Big Tech focusing on artificial intelligence (AI). I argue that the US NSS was an innovation planner until the 1990s and advance the hypothesis that, amid that vacuum, this millennium has seen the emergence of AI planning by US Big Tech. This has resulted in tensions with the US NSS given the centrality of AI in the military–industrial complex and ultimately for buttressing American primacy, which has always been the US NSS’s main goal. Amid today’s global turbulence, this tension has leaned towards a strategic yet asymmetric alliance that I define as a frenemy relation. Beyond the tit-for-tat between the US NSS and Big Tech companies, their experiences as innovation planners open space for prefiguring an alternative, a democratic way of planning innovation for the common good.