Nur Laiq
TECH HISTORIAN & POLICY ADVISOR
Fellow, Johns Hopkins Kissinger Center for Global affairs · Washington, DC
Nur Laiq's writing examines AI as not just a a technological question but a question of power: Who gets to shape the future? Who benefits? Who bears the risks? Who writes the rules?
Benn Craig / Belfer Center
ABOUT
Politics, Policy, and Public Action for the AI Age
Dr Nur Laiq is a Fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, based in Washington, DC. She is a Non-Resident Advisor at the Center on International Cooperation and the International Peace Institute in New York, and a Senior Advisor at TrustWorks Global in Geneva. She held the inaugural Emerging Technology & Geopolitics Fellowship and the Ernest May Fellowship in History & Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. She has a DPhil from the University of Oxford on the political history of Silicon Valley.
Nur examines how governance choices, economic decisions, and geopolitical rivalries drive technological change — and how Silicon Valley has shaped American political and economic life from 1975 to the present. Her work focuses on tech and AI policy-making in the United States and at the United Nations. She combines a background in tech history with policy experience at the intersection of peace, security, and political economy.
Nur has over fifteen years of experience working across politics and policy, while also writing for public audiences. She worked as a policy advisor at the UN Department of Political Affairs in New York and at the European Commission in Brussels, for political parties in the UK and in India, and as a senior policy analyst at the International Peace Institute in New York. She has been a visiting fellow at the Center for Policy Research, New Delhi and at Georgetown University, and a Andrew Mellon Foundation Global South visiting fellow at the University of Oxford. Nur has served on the Center for American Progress & Ford Foundation U.S.–India Task Force and on the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Group on Youth, Peace, and Security.
WRITING
Nur’s current book project, How Silicon Valley Remade America: The Fifty-Year Fight Over Tech, Politics, and Power, tells the story of how Silicon Valley came to write the rules of American democracy and how the public might write them back.
Nur's writing and interviews on tech politics and AI governance has appeared in The Financial Times, NPR, Bloomberg TV, Foreign Policy, The Hill, The National Interest., El Mercurio She has given talks on technology and AI at the United Nations, Harvard Law School, Harvard Kennedy School, and Yale Digital Ethics Center.
Nur's broader writing and interviews on politics, policy, and power have appeared in The Guardian, The New Statesman, The Nation, Outlook, Indian Express, The Times of India, Caravan, The Global Observatory, Progress Online, and C-SPAN. She has also given invited talks at the UN, House of Commons, European Parliament, World Bank, Chatham House, Nehru Memorial Library, Yale, Columbia, NYU, LSE, University of Oxford, University of Melbourne, and Brenthurst Foundation, Konrad Adenauer Foundation, National University of Signapore, and Geneva Centre for Security Policy.
SELECTED WORK
Writing, interviews, and talks
All
Books
Articles & Analysis
Interviews & Media
Talks & Events
Article
The Financial Times
Argues that the US needs a National Dialogue on AI. If America wants to lead on AI, public legitimacy can’t be an afterthought, it has to be part of the strategy.
Article
NYU Center on International Cooperation
Policy paper on how multilateral AI governance can structure private sector participation so that industry input strengthens rather than displaces public authority.
Interview
[Re]Group — UN Foundation
Long-form interview on what AI governance should look like at the UN: building accountability machinery rather than hosting conversations about principles, and helping states avoid lock-in to a single bloc or company.
Talk
UN Department of Political Affairs, New York
Talk to the Policy Division of the UN Department of Political Affairs on the geopolitics of artificial intelligence.
Talk
UN Open Source Week, New York
Panel talk on using AI for public good: independent audits before deployment, procurement standards that retain public rights over data and models, and public registers of government AI systems.
Talk
UN Open Source Week, New York
Talk on sovereign AI governance, open source, and what national control of AI infrastructure requires in practice.
Talk
UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, New York
Talk to the AI Working Group of the Policy Division, drawing lessons for the UN from the political history of technology.
Talk
American Political History Conference, Washington, DC
Conference roundtable on the history of technology policy in modern America.
Interview
Foreign Policy — World's Toughest Job
Podcast conversation on whether the UN is equipped to govern AI, or whether Silicon Valley is setting global AI policy without international oversight.
Article
The National Interest
Argues that meaningful AI regulation in the United States depends first on reaching a bilateral understanding with China, since competition fears are the standing objection to regulating at all.
CONTACT
Get in touch
For media requests, speaking invitations, and general enquiries:
© 2026 Nur Laiq