After the Soviet Union broke America's atomic monopoly in 1949, several prominent scientists and politicians favoured the development of the hydrogen bomb, a fusion weapon hundreds of timesmore powerful than the bombs that the Manhattan Project had built.
In these cost-cutting times, when economic difficulties jeopardiseinvestment in development, let us be clear that developmental progress more than pays for itself.
The convergence of mobile internet, smartphones, the digital and physical world is likely to generate hundreds of timesmore data in the coming years, which presents tremendous challenges as well as unprecedented opportunities for development of the ICT industry.
America has almost three times as many Nobel prize-winners than the next country (Britain), and spends more on research and development than any other country.