The Invisible Infrastructure of the Modern World
February 20, 2026
Standards are the invisible infrastructure of the modern world. They’re the reason bridges are safe to cross, school buses are a particular shade of yellow, and your credit card will work at businesses around the world. As a Boeing executive memorably put it, “Airplanes are thousands of standards taking flight.” Heck, standards are the reason this text displays properly on your device.
Increasingly, international standards are also becoming a tool to gain geopolitical advantages, warns Laurie Locascio in her conversation with senior editor Megan Nicholson on The Ongoing Transformation podcast. “So some countries, for instance, are flooding the standards field, especially in emerging technologies, trying to gain a lot more influence than they should,” which gives an advantage to their domestic industries in fields such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing.
For the United States to stay competitive and innovative on the global stage, more people need to get involved in setting standards, argues Locascio. She is enthusiastic about the importance of working in standards: “I think a lot of people are in this world to make impact, and if you want to make impact, this is a great place to play.”