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NEW YORK -- One of the greatest threats facing the United States is the possibility of falling behind the rest of the world in the fast-emerging nanotechnology industry, former speaker of the US House of Representatives Newt Gingrich warned Thursday.

During a simultaneous press conference in Washington D.C. and at the Internet World trade show here, Gingrich called nanotechnology "one of the least talked about, yet fastest growing and influential sectors of the global economy."

The former Republican Congressman, who has joined industry association NanoBusiness Alliance as its honorary chairman, said nanotechnology applications will be even more profound than the impact of computing and the Internet.

"If you can learn to use self-assembly (and manufacture) at the nanotech, or billionth of a level, the implications alone for reducing energy are dramatic."

Already, he said, nanotechnology has progressed from pure science applications to a profitable industry, although the public knows relatively little about it.

According to the alliance, nanotechnology is defined as the ability to measure, see, and manufacture materials and processes on a scale as small as a billionth of a level. A nanometer is one-thousandth of a micron (micrometer), which is one-thousandth of a millimeter.

Revenues from the technology are already at about $45.5 billion globally, the NanoBusiness Alliance said during the press conference.

Venture capital investment in nanotechnology will be over $1 billion in 2002, up from less than $100 million in 1998. In addition to corporations such as IBM, Lockheed Martin and Texas Instruments that are driving nanotechnology developments, universities such as Columbia University, Harvard and MIT are making it a huge focus, the group said.

Gingrich, who also is a political commentator for Fox News and serves as chief executive of The Gingrich Group, has been an active supporter and student of nanotechnology. And while the former Republican Congressman has praised the Clinton Administration for creating the National Nanotechnology Initiative, he wants to see far more government support.

"Discoveries involving nanoscience will be as dramatic and, I believe, even more important than the creation of the Internet," he said.

"If we want to stay at the forefront economically and remain a world leader politically and militarily, I think we have an obligation to really look seriously at funding more nanoscience research."

With European and Asian countries rapidly deploying its use, the United States must look at its devotion to more research funding as "an extraordinary national security issue."

The New York-based NanoBusiness Alliance was created to help advance the nanotechnology industry and develop a range of initiatives to support the nanotechnology business community.

Education and public awareness are among the goals of the group, which was founded by F. Mark Modzelewski, a former member of the Clinton Administration who helped work on technology policy; research expert Nathan Tinker, and Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital, a venture firm that focuses on artificial intelligence and distributed systems software.

Even with nanotechnology revenues expected to reach over $500 billion within the next eight years, Gingrich said, "we're just scratching the surface."