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After careful consideration, the Emerging Technology Observatory will be sunsetting two of its tools – ORCA (Open-source software Research and Community Activity) and PARAT (Private-Sector AI-Related Activity Tracker) – effective May 11, 2026. After that date, both tools will no longer be accessible on the ETO website.
About ORCA and PARAT
Since their respective launches, ORCA and PARAT served as valuable resources for researchers, analysts, and policymakers tracking key dimensions of the global technology landscape. ORCA brought together data from GitHub and CSET's Merged Academic Corpus to help users explore open-source software (OSS) activity across a wide range of science and technology research fields – tracking usage and engagement trends for thousands of OSS projects. PARAT gave users a window into private-sector AI activity, aggregating data on AI publications, patents, and hiring across hundreds of companies worldwide – from Big Tech titans and leading generative AI startups to the entire S&P 500. PARAT’s underlying dataset, the Private-Sector AI Indicators, drew on multiple sources to provide company metadata and AI activity metrics.
What Happens After May 11
While the interactive tools themselves will go offline, the following will remain available:
- PARAT’s underlying Private-Sector AI Indicators dataset. The dataset will no longer be updated, but the current dataset (last updated 10-14-2025) will remain available for download and use via the ETO data portal and Zenodo.
- ORCA’s dataset. Like PARAT, it will not be updated going forward, but the current dataset (last updated 09-23-2025) will remain available for download and use on the public Github repo.
- The GitHub repositories for both tools – georgetown-cset/parat and georgetown-cset/eto-orca. Both repos will be archived, meaning no further updates or contributions will be accepted, but all code will remain available for reference and reuse.
Why We're Making This Change
Sunsetting ORCA and PARAT is not a decision we made lightly. Both tools represent significant investments of time, expertise, and care, and we're proud of what they've enabled.
That said, maintaining a growing portfolio of tools and datasets requires difficult prioritization choices. By stepping back from ORCA and PARAT, we will refocus our team's energy on ETO's remaining suite of tools – including AGORA, Scout, the Map of Science, and PATHWISE – and develop new resources that meet the evolving needs of the emerging technology policy community.
We're grateful to everyone who used ORCA and PARAT, shared feedback, and helped shape these tools over the years. If you have questions about the transition or want to discuss how to continue your work using the underlying datasets, please reach out or schedule a chat with an ETO team member.
We look forward to continuing to support your work through ETO's broader platform – and to the new tools and datasets we'll be releasing in the months ahead.