IFP Update: October 2025
Hope you had a fun Halloween! We have a few open roles right now that you should be aware of:
We’re hiring a Director of Operations to improve and oversee the internal systems that power IFP’s work — from finance and compliance to HR and organizational planning. This role will be the senior-most operations role in the organization and includes managing the operations team and ensuring the organization’s day-to-day operations are seamless, compliant, and scalable.
Our high-skilled immigration team is hiring for Fellows and Senior Fellows with experience in policy design and analysis, federal engagement, and public communication. Come help us rethink how the US recruits global talent.
Remember: referrals can earn you a $3,000 bounty if we hire someone based on your recommendation, so share with your friends! Now on to the regular updates.
✍️ Published Work
OPT Observatory. Immigration Fellow Violet Buxton-Walsh built a new microsite with never-before-seen data that IFP obtained from ICE via a FOIA request. This microsite is the most in-depth public resource on how the US retains international students after they graduate.
Should the US Sell Blackwell Chips to China? Georgia Adamson, Saif Khan, Tao Burga, and Tim Fist published the first in-depth analysis of the B30A, NVIDIA’s “China-version” of their Blackwell chip lineup. Contrary to claims that this is a “downgraded” chip, the B30A is nearly equivalent to the best chips on the market because, at around 50% performance for 50% of the cost, you can just buy 2x as many and network them together.
How to Implement an Operation Warp Speed for Rare Earths. China issued dramatic global export controls on rare earths (which have since been paused following trade negotiations). On October 23rd, Treasury Secretary Bessent called for an Operation Warp Speed for rare earths. Our team pulled together a plan in partnership with Employ America for how to achieve that goal on a rapid timescale.
How Much Should We Spend on Scientific Replication? HHS Secretary Kennedy has proposed directing 20% of the NIH’s budget to replication. That would be orders of magnitude more than we’ve ever allocated to biomedical replication. How much should we actually spend? And how do we ensure the money is well spent? In a new analysis for IFP, Jordan Dworkin investigates the ROI of replication and finds the optimal level is much lower: 1.4%
Aligning High-Skilled Immigration Policy with National Strategy. Director of Immigration Policy Jeremy Neufeld wrote a report with the Aspen Institute outlining the shortcomings of the current high-skill immigration system. He proposes a points-based green-card system that awards visas based on characteristics associated with success and recommends more proactive talent recruitment.
Brain Freeze: How International Student Exclusion Will Shape the STEM Workforce and Economic Growth in the United States. Jeremy and Distinguished Immigration Counsel Amy Nice wrote a paper with the economist Michael Clemens about how foreign students play a key role as the main pathway for high-skill STEM talent entering the U.S. workforce. Proposed policy changes could significantly reduce the number of foreign STEM graduates from U.S. universities, leading to a 6–11% drop in high-skill STEM workers. This decline could cause annual GDP losses ranging from $72 billion to $481 billion within ten years, depending on the severity of the restrictions.
Two new episodes of the Right of Way podcast from Infrastructure Fellow Pavan Venkatakrishnan and Thomas Hochman:
Episode 3.5: Special Shutdown Edition
An interview with Josh Siegel, an energy and climate reporter at Politico, about how the shutdown will affect permitting reform discussions, what makes this round of negotiations different from past efforts, and the state of play in Congress, from the House to the Senate, from NEPA to transmission, and beyond.
An interview with Cy McNeill, the Director of Federal Affairs for the Data Center Coalition, and Chris Phalen, the VP for Domestic Policy at the National Association of Manufacturers and former Senior Policy Advisor to Senator Kyrsten Sinema, on how permitting is constraining manufacturing and data center deployment, end-users’ permitting wishlists, and how political dynamics have shifted on both sides of the aisle
🏛️ Statecraft by Santi Ruiz
Why We Don’t Build Apartments for Families. Santi interviews Bobby Fijan, a co-founder of the American Housing Corporation, a startup building housing for families in cities. A burning question motivates his work: How do you make cities places where families can live and thrive?
Is the Senate Fixing Housing Policy? Santi interviews Will Poff-Webster, Brian Potter, and Alex Armlovich about the ROAD to Housing Act, which passed the Senate recently as a rider on the annual defense bill. It’s a package of 27 pieces of legislation to boost housing supply, improve affordability, reduce regulatory roadblocks, and reduce homelessness.
A Statecraft Fall Roundup. Santi announces the launch of the Recoding America Fund, reflects on his experience at the Progress Conference in Berkeley, and publishes a new interview from that event with Michael Kratsios, the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House.
🏗️ Construction Physics by Brian Potter
Why Are So Many Pedestrians Killed by Cars in the US? Brian investigates the mysterious rise in pedestrian deaths in the US. More than 7,300 pedestrians were killed in motor vehicle accidents in the US in 2023, around 18% of all motor vehicle deaths that year. Until around 2009, pedestrian deaths in the US had been falling, declining from 7,516 deaths in 1975 to just 4,109 in 2009.
More on US Pedestrian Deaths. After reader feedback from his first piece on pedestrian deaths, Brian looks into a few more theories (spoiler: he finds them mostly wanting).
How the UK Lost Its Shipbuilding Industry. The UK fell from producing 57% of world tonnage in 1947 to just 17% a decade later. By the 1970s, their output was below 5% of the world total, and by the 1990s it was less than 1%. In 2023, the UK produced no commercial ships at all. Brian explains how it happened.
📰 Media
Our analysis of the effects of exporting NVIDIA Blackwell chips (B30As) to China garnered a lot of media attention:
Bloomberg included a summary of our paper in their Economics Daily newsletter:
“Days earlier, the Institute for Progress, a think tank focused on innovation policy, wrote a lengthy paper on the chip’s capabilities and the implications of allowing its sale to China. Since this is an economics rather than technology newsletter, you’ll need to read the paper if you’re interested in the chip’s specs. Suffice it to say, it’s much better than anything China can make right now.”
Reuters quoted Tim and cited our analysis in their coverage of the US-China trade talks:
“‘If any meaningful quantities are allowed, it’s a huge change,’ said Fist, director of emerging technology policy at the Institute for Progress, a Washington-based think tank. ‘It’s functionally ending the export control regime that we have today.’”
CNBC mentioned our work in their news coverage:
“A report released earlier this week from the Institute for Progress, a U.S. think tank, argued that allowing B30A exports to China would dramatically shrink America’s current AI compute advantage over China.”
NBC News covered our report:
“Allowing China to buy Nvidia’s latest-generation chips, even a modified version, could drastically reduce the United States’ AI advantage, analysts say, as the American artificial intelligence government lobbies the U.S. government to expand its export control permits to also include the upcoming B30A chip. ‘Minimizing the export of powerful AI chips to China is the best way to maximize the United States’ AI compute advantage in the short term,’ said analysts at the Institute for Progress, a Washington-based think tank.”
Bloomberg quoted Technology Fellow Georgia Adamson on the role of Middle Eastern oil companies in AI investments:
“The Humain deal gives Aramco a more direct role. Down the road, oil companies expect to be beneficiaries of the technological advances they are financing in the first place, according to Georgia Adamson, technology fellow at the Washington-based Institute for Progress. ‘Adnoc and Aramco are among the most important players in realizing the Gulf’s AI ambitions — from financing state-controlled AI investment vehicles to serving as key AI adopters,’ she said. ‘The immense capital that Adnoc and Aramco have at their disposal gives the UAE and Saudi Arabia permission to take hugely risky bets on AI, and the financial padding if these investments fall through.’”
The Economist interviewed Jeremy about the new H-1B rules proposed by the Trump administration:
“Around 130,000 H1-B visas are granted each year, two-thirds as part of a lottery available to all employers and the remaining third through a route for universities and research bodies. The $100,000 fee would not apply to people already in the country, muting its effect, notes Jeremy Neufeld of the Institute for Progress, a think-tank. But the impact on the research route would be brutal: university post-doctorates rarely command the sort of salaries that could justify a $100,000 visa, even if their work carries big economic benefits.”
Brian went on Odd Lots with Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway to talk about construction productivity and promote his new book, The Origins of Efficiency.
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