GoKawiilPublic money does more than support frontier technologies, it helps to shape the markets that grow around them. Through decisions on contracts, grants, benchmarks, infrastructure and purchasing routes, governments influence which firms learn first, which systems are adopted and whether markets stay open or closed.
Governments must recognize their role in shaping future competition in frontier-technology sectors. When possible, they should make choices that widen the markets they help to create and not turn them into gateways controlled by a few private firms.
Concentration is already evident in parts of the space sector1. In artificial intelligence and quantum technologies, the choices governments are making now — on which capabilities to fund and procure, how to assess and deploy them and how to govern their use — will influence future use and investments (see ‘US frontier-technology markets’).
Leading suppliers of frontier technologies might owe their position to outstanding performance. But repeated awards to the same supplier can become a problem if they make one system the default around which future work is planned.
Here, we call on governments to adopt safeguards that take account of how their procurement, adoption and evaluation decisions for cutting-edge technology will shape future markets and affect the scope for later competition. The central principle is contestability: public support should reward performance today, without denying later suppliers the access that they need to offer better solutions and compete on their merits.
How technological lock-in happens
The space sector illustrates how market constraints emerge. Governments are major customers for space services, and their procurement decisions determine which firms learn and build capability — and attract future investments. The mission launch itself generates evidence about what works, which gives the supplier an edge that makes its system easier to choose again.
For example, SpaceX, headquartered near Brownsville, Texas, conducted 118 launches — 83% of the total — licensed by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in fiscal year 20241. In April 2025, the same company was assigned seven of the nine national-security launch missions from that year’s budget, at a total price of US$846 million; the remaining two missions went to another established provider at $428 million.
In 2025, NASA and the firms Axiom Space and SpaceX launched a private astronaut mission to the International Space Station.Credit: Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/EPA/Shutterstock
In launch provision, a supplier’s advantage might come from its record of reliability, built through a series of successful missions. In cloud computing and AI, it might stem from the habits formed when agencies learn one way to buy, secure and use systems. In quantum technologies, it might come from the authority attached to publicly funded testing facilities, which can make some approaches seem more credible than others.
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