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Intel at the Edge

Special Competitive Studies Project - SCSP

Where technology meets intelligence. Intel at the Edge is a podcast by the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP), hosted by Chip Usher, Senior Director for Intelligence. Chip explores the latest innovations transforming the intelligence community with experts who are shaping the future of national security.

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23 episodes
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Avg 36 min
English

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#29
Yesterday · 42 min
From Light Tables to AI: Shelby Pierson on the Future of Imagery Analysis
In this episode of Intel at the Edge, host Chip Usher sits down with Shelby Pierson, former Director for Analysis at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). Shelby joined the intelligence community in 1999 as an imagery analyst and rose through the ranks — working Iraq ground forces analysis, denial and deception, election security as the DNI's lead, and ultimately serving as NGA's Director of Analysis. Shelby recently authored "Sensing the Threat: Operationalizing Computer Vision f
#28
August 26 · 35 min
Beyond LLMs: How Jumptuit's Don Leka Is Building AI for the Physical World
In this episode of Intel at the Edge, host Chip Usher sits down with Don Leka, Founder and CEO of Jumptuit, to explore a different kind of artificial intelligence — one built not on text, but on real-time data from the physical world. Don shares his journey from building the Glide OS cloud platform in 2004, to founding Jumptuit, a company using a large dynamic reasoning model to track physical-world signals — from shipping movements and port activity to refinery output and geopolitical indicato
#27
August 12 · 36 min
Narrative Intelligence: How Adversaries Weaponize Stories with Joe Stradinger
Narrative intelligence is emerging as one of the intelligence community's most important new disciplines — and few people understand it better than Joe Stradinger. In this episode of Intel at the Edge, Joe Stradinger — founder of Edge Theory and creator of the National Center for Narrative Intelligence in Oxford, Mississippi — joins Chip to break down what narrative intelligence actually is, how it differs from traditional social media monitoring, and why he believes it's become a central front
#26
July 29 · 33 min
Iran's Nuclear Program: "Down But Not Out" with Amy McAuliffe
Four and a half months into the Iran war, what's actually left of Iran's nuclear program — and what would it take to keep it that way? In this episode of Intel at the Edge, host Chip Usher sits down with Amy McAuliffe, who recently retired from the CIA as the Assistant Director for Weapons and Counter Proliferation. Amy also served as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council and Assistant Director of CIA for the Near East.
#25
July 28 · 24 min
Kimi K3: What China's Latest Model Means for the US with David Lin
Kimi K3, China's largest open-weight AI model yet, just hit the public — and it's rewriting the terms of the US-China AI race. In this emergency episode, host Chip Usher sits down with David Lin, Senior Director for Tech Platforms at SCSP and CIA veteran, to unpack what K3's release really signals. They dig into how the competition has shifted from a simple US-vs-China contest into a two-axis battle of open weights vs. closed weights, why K3 dropped right alongside Xi Jinping's World AI Confere
#24
July 15 · 40 min
How Agentic AI is Enabling A New Industry: Intelligence-As-A-Service with Ansel Stein
In this episode of “Intel at the Edge”, Chip Usher sits down with Ansel Stein, Vice President of Operations at Crisis24 and a former CIA analyst, to explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping the way private-sector companies access intelligence analysis. Stein discusses how Crisis24 is delivering AI-generated intelligence directly to corporate C-suites — from geopolitical risk to tailored daily briefings built on a company's own institutional knowledge. The conversation digs into the trad
#23
July 6 · 38 min
Why America Stopped Thinking About the Future with Ari Wallach
Futurist Ari Wallach joins Intel at the Edge to discuss why the U.S. government canceled its long-range forecasting program — and what it costs us. From scenario planning and megatrends to AI, loneliness, and narrative warfare, Wallach makes the case for embedding foresight into how America thinks and acts. Wallach is the founder of Long Path Labs and the former host of the PBS television series "A Brief History of the Future." He has advised the Department of State, the United Nations Refugee
#22
June 17 · 39 min
Inside the US-UK Intelligence Partnership with Gen. Tim Haugh & Sir Jeremy Fleming
In this episode of “Intel at the Edge”, former NSA Director General Tim Haugh and former GCHQ Director Sir Jeremy Fleming sit down for a rare, candid conversation about one of the most consequential intelligence relationships in the world. From the wartime roots at Bletchley Park to the age of AI and quantum computing, they explore how the US-UK signals intelligence alliance has evolved over 80+ years — and what it must do to stay ahead of an increasingly complex threat landscape.
#21
June 3 · 34 min
Why Supply Chain Blind Spots Are a National Security Problem with Brandon Daniels
From rare earth minerals to nitrocellulose, Exiger CEO Brandon Daniels warns that invisible vulnerabilities in America's supply chains pose serious national security risks. He also makes the case for smarter public-private partnerships and AI-driven tools to close the gap before adversaries exploit it. Recorded at the AI+ Expo, Daniels draws on his experience leading one of the world's most advanced supply chain intelligence platforms to argue that the U.S. must move beyond reactive policy and
#20
May 20 · 29 min
How Israel uses AI for Intelligence & Why It's Not Enough with Amos Lahav
In this episode of "Intel at the Edge", host Chip Usher is joined by Amos Lahav, founder of Airis Labs, to examine one of the most consequential questions in modern defense: what happens when AI becomes the backbone of intelligence collection and battlefield targeting? Drawing on hard lessons from the October 7th intelligence failure, the rise of systems like Gospel, and the growing threat of adversarial AI, Lahav offers a firsthand account of how the technology is changing — and sometimes faili
#19
April 22 · 32 min
Is AI Actually Useful for Intelligence Analysis? with Wayne McCool & Bruce Frost
Two senior CIA veterans — Wayne McCool, former Associate Deputy Director for Analysis, and Bruce Frost of "Rhombus Power" — cut through the hype. They discuss how AI is being used inside the intelligence community today, what the real limitations are, and what the future of all-source analysis looks like.
#18
April 8 · 48 min
FISA Section 702 with Brett Freeman
FISA Section 702 is one of the most powerful — and controversial — surveillance laws in the United States. It allows the U.S. intelligence community to collect electronic communications from foreign targets passing through American company infrastructure, without a traditional warrant. In this episode, we sit down with Brett Freeman, a former attorney at the NSA, the National Counterterrorism Center, and the Department of Justice's National Security Division, who has spent years briefing the Wh
#17
March 25 · 32 min
Inside Beijing's Strategy: The Trump-Xi Summit, Taiwan & the Tech War with Chris Johnson
With the Trump-Xi summit approaching, former CIA senior China analyst Chris Johnson joins “Intel at the Edge” to give an unvarnished assessment of Beijing's priorities, Xi Jinping's mindset, and how China is navigating an increasingly unpredictable America. Chris draws on over two decades in the US intelligence and foreign affairs communities to explain what Xi really wants from this summit, how the rare earth standoff reshaped the bilateral relationship, and why China's long-term focus is brea
#16
March 11 · 48 min
China’s Greatest Heist: How Beijing Stole America’s Technology with Andrew Badger
China didn’t just compete with the United States — it harvested America’s innovation. In this episode of “Intel at the Edge” Andrew Badger joins Chip Usher to discuss The Great Heist — the story of how China used industrial espionage, talent recruitment, and a whole-of-society strategy to leapfrog the U.S. in critical technologies.
#15
February 25 · 47 min
How U.S. Intelligence Views China’s Military Power with Admiral Michael Studeman
Admiral Michael Studeman joins "Intel at the Edge " to discuss the shifting landscape of Indo-Pacific security. Drawing from his decades of experience in the U.S. Intelligence Community, including as the Director of Intelligence at Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral Studeman provides a rare inside look into how America’s intelligence services view China’s growing military power and how Beijing is positioning itself for regional and global leadership. Additionally, as Former Director of the Office of
#14
February 24 · 31 min
Emergency Update on Iran with Norman Roule
With two U.S. carrier strike groups converging on Iran and a presidential deadline looming, the clock is ticking. In this urgent episode of Intel at the Edge, host Chip Usher — Senior Director for Intelligence at the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP) — sits down with Norman Roule, former National Intelligence Manager for Iran at ODNI, to assess what may be one of the most consequential moments in U.S.-Iran relations in decades. They cover the prospect of diplomacy amidst the ongoing Ge
#13
February 11 · 37 min
The "High Ground" of the North Atlantic: Why Greenland is the Next Frontier of Global Competition with Heather Conley
In this episode of Intel at the Edge, host Chip Usher is joined by Heather Conley, a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a leading expert on Arctic security. Together, they unpack the strategic value of Greenland and the evolving geopolitical stakes in the Arctic. In this episode, we discuss: The Strategic Imperative: Why Greenland serves as a "first line of defense" for North America, providing early warning for ballistic missiles and tracking Russian nuclear sub
#11
January 28 · 44 min
How the CIA Launched the Predator Program with Alec Bierbauer
In this episode of Intel at the Edge, host Chip Usher sits down with retired CIA officer Alec Bierbauer, a core founder of the team that launched the agency’s revolutionary Predator drone program. Bierbauer recounts the high-stakes history of the hunt for Osama bin Laden before 9/11, revealing how a small team bypassed traditional bureaucracy to put "U.S. eyes on target" in the rugged terrain of Afghanistan. The conversation explores the technical and ethical evolution of unmanned systems, from
#10
January 16 · 29 min
Emergency Update on the Iran Crisis with Jonathan Panikoff
In this emergency episode of Intelligence at the Edge, host Chip Usher is joined by Jonathan Panikoff, Director of the Near East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council and former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East. They provide a critical update on the widespread protests and severe regime crackdown that have seized Iran since late December 2025. Panikoff analyzes how this movement differs from previous uprisings, noting that while the "Woman, Life, Freedom" protests we
#9
January 7 · 22 min
Congressional Perspectives on Technology and Intelligence with Representative Pat Fallon of Texas
On this episode of Intel at the Edge, host Chip Usher is joined by U.S. Congressman Pat Fallon (TX-04) to discuss the evolving landscape of national security and his first year on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Congressman Fallon emphasizes the urgent need for the Intelligence Community to embrace AI and emerging technologies to keep pace with global adversaries like China and Russia. As a leader on the Subcommittee on Open Source Intelligence, he highlights the critical v

Showing 1–20 of 23 episodes