The G20 member ministers concluded a two-day Innovation Ministerial in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The Department of Commerce and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) hosted the Ministerial. At the conclusion of the Ministerial, G20 Ministers released a consensus statement recognizing that “emerging technologies have the potential to unlock prosperity, enhance productivity, and expand opportunity for all our peoples.”

We, Ministers of the G20 who assembled in Chapel Hill, recognize that emerging technologies have the potential to unlock prosperity, enhance productivity, and expand opportunity for all our peoples. These technologies will strengthen long-term growth and development across our economies when deployed in a secure and reliable manner. Realizing their benefits will require policies that intentionally promote innovation throughout the technology development lifecycle, successful adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across public services, and government action to equip all our peoples with the skills needed to understand and use emerging technologies. Such policies can be supported by sector-specific, risk-based approaches to the deployment of technology where appropriate, taking into account national circumstances and different levels of development, consistent with applicable legal frameworks, and with respect for fundamental freedoms. We call on members to develop their own policies and preserve national sovereignty in the governance of emerging technologies, while allowing for engagement in international discussions.

Pillar 1: Pro-Innovation Policy Frameworks

Innovation is the defining driver of prosperity and transformational development. We affirm that emerging technology policy frameworks should promote human-centric innovation while accelerating scientific and technological advancement and enabling the broad and trustworthy adoption of these technologies necessary to maximize the benefits for all our peoples. Outdated or inflexible regulatory approaches can unintentionally restrict innovation. Policy frameworks that are well-designed, proportionate, and adaptable can encourage innovation and support the adoption of emerging technologies across sectors. To unlock the full benefits of emerging technology for society and the economy, governments should design policy frameworks that intentionally promote innovation and support secure and trustworthy development, deployment, and human-centric adoption.

We have drawn lessons from how mature technologies have evolved under past policy frameworks to identify crosscutting technology policy principles which distinctly map to the science and technologies development lifecycle, from foundational research and early-stage development through commercialization and deployment. These robust policy principles, implemented in a flexible manner, provide a foundation for the development of adaptable policy frameworks designed to maximize the benefits of current and future technologies, while protecting our peoples from risks.

The Carolina Principles for Emerging Technologies enable G20 members to intentionally promote innovation and unlock the benefits of emerging technology by:

I. Advancing discovery and strengthening technology development by investing in foundational research to unlock breakthroughs, catalyzing private investment and entrepreneurship, removing bottlenecks that delay research and development, and strengthening domestic technological capabilities;

II. Accelerating commercialization by promoting secure real-world testing and validation and strengthening pathways from development to market; and

III. Enabling technology adoption by applying existing sector-specific regulatory approaches to govern the use of emerging technologies where appropriate, focusing any new regulation on novel technology considerations that existing frameworks cannot address, and supporting flexible policymaking practices.

We aim to build our own sovereign policy frameworks informed by the Carolina Principles for Emerging Technologies to drive productivity growth, strengthen national competitiveness, and improve quality of life for our peoples.