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Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker ’81 warned last month that the United States was falling behind China in research, casting higher education as one front in a high-stakes geopolitical competition.
Pritzker pointed to a ranking in which nine of the world’s 10 universities are located in China, with Harvard the sole U.S. institution.
“Today, of the top 10 universities in the world, 1 is in the United States and 9 are in China,” said Pritzker, who served as commerce secretary under former President Barack Obama. “My point is: that is not good.”
Pritzker appeared to be referencing the Nature Index, a widely cited ranking of research output. Harvard lost its place as the index’s top-ranked academic institution in June for the first time since comparable rankings began in 2015. It was replaced by Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China.
“I think we need to ask ourselves — across the national security, the economic, and the military — how do we not find ourselves in this situation 5, 10, 15 years from now?” she said.
The unusually candid remarks came during a July 14 Aspen Strategy Group forum moderated by Washington Post Managing Editor Peter Spiegel and make Pritzker just the latest top Harvard administrator to warn about the geopolitical consequences of shifts in research investment.
Pritzker’s warning drew some pushback from fellow panelist Condoleezza Rice, who served as secretary of state under former President George W. Bush. Rice said she did not “completely buy” the dominance of Chinese universities, pointing to Chinese political leaders who still seek to send their children to U.S. institutions.
But Pritzker said the rankings still represented a “trend” that should not be ignored.
“You’re making a point about a trend, I’m making a point about a trend,” Pritzker said. “Let’s pay attention to the trends and what’s affecting us.”
Pritzker’s warnings echo concerns raised by University President Alan M. Garber ’76 in April, when he cited the Nature rankings to argue that China was investing heavily in research while the U.S. pulled back. He was similarly dire in a July interview, arguing that other countries were taking advantage of the U.S.’s “appearance of weakness” to leap ahead.
The wide-ranging conversation also touched on U.S. foreign policy. Pritzker criticized what she described as the Trump administration’s overreliance on military force to resolve international conflict, arguing the U.S. was choosing “way too much disruption” over diplomacy. Though Pritzker did not explicitly reference the war in Iran, her comments came amid broader debate over the U.S. decision to enter another conflict in the Middle East.
”My concern is I think that today our foreign policy relies too much on our military and not enough on our diplomacy,’ Pritzker said, calling for a “course correction.”
She also warned that the U.S. was pushing its allies to make choices that might not serve American interests, including through tariff policy.
A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
While Pritzker has commented on the Trump administration before, she has generally been reserved in publicly criticizing the White House’s political agenda. That caution has come amid heightened scrutiny of her role on the Corporation: As Harvard’s battle with the administration escalated last summer, White House officials privately expressed frustration with Pritzker’s leadership. Pritzker appeared less bullish than some of her Harvard colleagues on artificial intelligence, however, saying she supported U.S. investment in the technology but was worried about the domestic challenges created by rapid technological change.
“AI is here to stay. It’s not going away. I believe the United States should invest in it. I think we should be the leaders in the world. And I’m not pushing back on AI,” Pritzker said. “I just think it’s creating enormous anxiety and lack of clarity.”
Pritzker said she thought the U.S. had failed to prepare its population for the “sea change” caused by rapid innovation.
“Whether it’s in technology per se, whether it’s in your business, whether it’s how you run your daily life. It’s changing so quickly. And I think people are struggling to adapt,” she said.
Fellow Corporation member Mariano-Florentino “Tino” Cuéllar ’93 struck a very different tone on a podcast last month with Harvard College Dean David J. Deming, when he touted the leveling potential of AI.
“There are billions of people around the world who want access to, effectively, a middle class lifestyle. And, above and beyond that, if at all possible, to a mix of expertise and support in their lives,” Cuéllar said. “I do not see a path for them to have that without some really smart and thoughtful leveraging of this technology.”
Shortly after the interview, Cuéllar was named Anthropic’s first global affairs chief, a role that will put him at the center of the company’s fraught negotiations with the White House. Deming has also encouraged students to engage with AI, which he has said for months will reshape the economy.
—Staff writer Hugo C. Chiasson can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at hcc.35. Follow him on X @HugoChiassonn.
—Staff writer Elise A. Spenner can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at elisespenner.82. Follow her on X @EliseSpenner.
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