As countries race to build clean energy industries, many face the same dilemmas: Where to invest, and how to avoid costly mistakes. Putting resources into the wrong sector—or into a market already crowded with competitors—can leave governments with stranded assets and unrealized climate goals.

To help navigate these questions, researchers in Johns Hopkins University’s Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab (NZIPL) have created the Clean Industrial Competitiveness Explorer (CICE) tool, an interactive, data-driven machine learning model designed to help governments, companies, and analysts understand where countries are genuinely competitive across clean energy technologies—and where they are not. Rather than prescribing policy, CICE offers what Bentley Allan, co-director of NZIPL and an associate professor of political science, calls a “competitive compass,” for guiding long-term investment and industrial strategy decisions.

Bentley Allan (L); Catherine Goldberg (C); Ishana Ratan (R)

“We built CICE because countries are being asked to make very big bets, very quickly,” said Allan, who is also an associate researcher with Johns Hopkins’ Ralph O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute (ROSEI). “But without a clear picture of their underlying industrial strengths, those bets can easily miss the mark.”

The motivation for the tool emerged as NZIPL researchers advised U.S. policymakers during the development of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in 2022. As other countries began rolling out their own versions of industrial policy—often with mixed results—the need for a clearer framework became apparent.

“Since the IRA, governments everywhere have been asking ‘What should we back, and what should we avoid?’” said Catherine Goldberg, a senior fellow with NZIPL. “CICE was built for exactly that moment.”

CICE compares industrial capabilities across 10 clean energy technologies, including solar panels, wind turbines and batteries. It does this by analyzing detailed global trade data and identifying the industrial building blocks—such as machinery, chemicals, electronics, metals, and industrial materials—that tend to strengthen success in each sector.

Ishana Ratan is a senior research associate at NZIPL who led the tool’s technical build. Rather than focusing on a single factor—such as access to raw materials—the model looks across entire supply chains to determine which factors predict competitiveness.

“With batteries, for instance, people often assume competitiveness is tied to critical minerals, but what we found is that chemical and mechanical capabilities matter just as much, if not more,” Ratan said. “South Korea and Japan, for example, are highly competitive in battery manufacturing despite their limited domestic lithium supplies. Their advantages include advanced manufacturing and world-class chemical capabilities, which the CICE tool can convey.”

The tool was designed to be accessible to a broad range of users and include dashboards that enable them to visualize complex data, and a ranking feature that lets users quickly compare countries and technologies. Goldberg focused on design, narrative, and global engagement, ensuring CICE was intuitive and compelling for stakeholders outside of academia.

“We want this to be useful not just to a small group of experts,” Goldberg said. “The challenge was telling a clear story in which countries with very different priorities could see themselves.”

Rather than raw export volumes, CICE focuses on revealed comparative advantage—how strong a country is in a given sector compared to its overall trade profile and the global market.

The approach has resonated with early users. Representatives from a variety of countries have expressed interest in CICE, particularly countries with emerging economies where clean energy investments have the potential to make a significant impact on growth and the ability to meet emissions targets. NZIPL has already conducted deeper analysis on countries including India, Brazil, and Mexico.

The NZIPL team plans to expand CICE with additional technologies, firm-level data, and even forward-looking projections. The long-term vision for potential users is broad: National governments, regional planners, companies assessing supply chains, and multilateral organizations using a shared compass to make smarter, more coordinated decisions.

“If we want the energy transition to stick, countries need strategies that align decarbonization with jobs, growth, and long-term competitiveness,” Allan said. “The energy transition isn’t just about deploying clean technologies; it’s about building durable industrial ecosystems that align climate goals with economic opportunity. CICE gives countries a clearer view of where they can realistically compete—and how to make smarter, more strategic choices over the long term.”