Governments urged to keep frontier-tech markets open and competitive

Luisa Corrado, an economist at the University of Rome Tor Vergata and a visiting fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School, contends that public money not only funds frontier technologies but also molds the markets that grow around them. She points to the space sector, where SpaceX performed 118 launches in fiscal year 2024 and secured most national-security missions, illustrating how early procurement can cement a supplier’s dominance.

Similar lock-in risks appear in AI, cloud computing and quantum, where agencies’ buying habits and standards can favor incumbent firms. Corrado cites NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services and the EU’s IRIS² as initiatives that diversify suppliers, while noting that such programmes can increase costs and cause schedule delays. She recommends staged commitments and clear entry pathways, exemplified by DARPA’s three-stage quantum benchmarking process, to keep markets contestable. The overarching message is that governments must embed safeguards in procurement to avoid future bottlenecks and preserve competition.