WASHINGTON: The Senate on Tuesday passed a massive bill that doubles the Defense Department’s research and innovation enterprise.

The United States Innovation and Competition Act, formerly called the Endless Frontiers Act, passed the Senate 68-32 and appears likely to become law. The bill now goes to the House. President Biden has said he supports the bill.

Sen. Ben Sasse introduced the amendment to increase DARPA’s annual budget by $3.5 billion, which will bring the total authorized funding to $7 billion over the next five years, according to a spokesperson in the senator’s office.

“I’m glad we won big victories by doubling DARPA’s budget and developing new sanction authorities to go after China for stealing American intellectual property,” Sasse said in a statement provided to Breaking Defense. “As a China hawk and a fiscal hawk, I would have liked for this bill to take a more focused and aggressive approach to the China threat – but this is a strong start. The Chinese Communist Party is working overtime on cyber, AI, and machine learning so that they can become the world’s preeminent super power. We can’t let our foot off the gas.”

Sen. Todd Young signed on as the first Republican to cosponsor the bill, which was introduced by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

“Americans have always looked towards the frontier and forward to new horizons,” Sen. Young said in a statement to Breaking Defense. “This bill, this moment, it’s not only about beating the Chinese Communist Party; the Endless Frontier Act is about using their challenge to become a better version of ourselves through investment in innovation.”

As BD readers know, the 2,400-page bill is designed to bolster US competitiveness against China by funding domestic research and innovation. The bill funds technology initiatives such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, advanced communications, and advanced manufacturing. Many of these technologies have dual commercial-military use cases. Since BD first reported on the bill, the total amount of funding grew by approximately $150 billion — to $250 billion.

Notably, the bill creates a new Directorate of Technology and Innovation at the National Science Foundation and provides $29 billion over fiscal years 2022 to 2026 for emerging tech research and innovation. This new funding supplements continued money to be allocated for existing initiatives at $52 billion over fiscal years 2022 to 2026.

The bill also provides $52 billion specifically for domestic research, innovation, and manufacturing of semiconductors. Some of these chips will have defense use cases. The funding comes as the world faces a shortage of chips, which experts say will likely last through 2022 and quite possibly into 2023. As BD readers know, the proposed 2022 defense budget called the US chip supply chain “fragile and threatened.”

The bill includes $1.5 billion for 5G research and development.

In addition to funding US initiatives, the bill includes a slew of measures enabling the US to sanction Beijing over everything from cyberattacks and intellectual property theft to human rights violations.

Meanwhile, China is drafting legislation to make countries choose who to side with on sanctions — the US and European Union or China. The Global Times, an English language nationalist mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party, reported that the draft legislation gives China the ability to sanction any country who cooperates with US/EU sanctions against China.

The law, according to the Chinese publication, “will deter foreign governments, notably the US and the EU, from resorting to long-arm jurisdiction …If Chinese entities are hit with unjustified sanctions, the proposed law is supposed to crystallize actionable countermeasures against the foreign governments and institutions… expecting the legal effort to make up for losses that Chinese entities would suffer.”