May 26, 2021 Cooperation between democratic allies and partners is crucial, and so is the imperative to build science and innovation, but this raises a question: How can democracies practically build science and innovation with allies and partners? China’s emergence as a peer-innovator makes this question urgent. This commentary offers practical paths forward for the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—the “Five Eyes” nations, not just their intelligence sharing apparatus—in key areas for national security like artificial intelligence (AI) and genetics. Why now? Deep, tangled connections generate the distributed process of innovation within each national innovation system. But innovation at the scale needed now means bringing ecosystems