Powering AI: The Key to Our National Security

In a recent interview, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum warned, “If we’re not leading in AI as a country, we will lose cold wars, we’ll lose hot wars. We’ll lose it all.” AI is being used extensively for everything from making memes to academic research, but it will change military operations forever. It’s incredibly powerful, but there’s a problem: AI uses a considerable amount of electricity. Whoever wins the race for AI will have a tremendous advantage on the battlefields of tomorrow, but they need the energy infrastructure to support it.

Though computers have always been energy-intensive, AI takes it to a whole new level. Where a typical search on Google uses about 0.3 watt-hours of electricity, a single request in ChatGPT uses ten times as much energy. Every aspect of AI, from training a new model to storing vast amounts of data, is very resource-intensive. (READ MORE from Philip Reichert: Our Intelligence Community Is Broken)

AI demands substantial baseload electricity, a constant strain on the power grid. Our country does not have enough capacity to meet a tenfold increase in data center power demand. Our growing need for power is coming at a time when the Biden administration is taking dramatic steps to hobble our energy security: radical electric vehicle mandates, new restrictions on oil & gas development, and draining strategic oil reserves to roughly half what they were under President Trump.

Rene Haas, CEO of the chip design company Arm, said that AI data centers could consume as much as a quarter of U.S. power requirements by the end of the decade. Despite this looming need — from just one critical industry — Biden continues to mismanage the American energy economy.

It’s imperative that we power this transformation. AI is not just another technological advancement but a fundamental shift in every job, company, and industry. Most importantly, the national security implications for AI cannot be understated.

Military Power

The country that first masters AI will see it utilized in every facet of military operations. Enormous efficiency gains will be realized in everything from logistics to battlefield planning. These changes mean that the pace of warfare will increase dramatically. The military with the best AI capability will be able to operate with inhuman efficiency to overwhelm the less capable opponent.

The race for military AI is critical due to its impact on the entire process of making war, from autonomous systems to decision-making. China views this race as a golden opportunity to overtake the U.S. in military capability and has heavily invested in its military AI programs. Worryingly, they might be succeeding. A recent report from data firm Giovani indicates that China is overtaking the U.S. in AI development. The U.S. military could be severely disadvantaged in any potential conflict if China is successful.

As much as it sounds like science fiction, military AI has already been put to use by Israel in the battlefield. “The Gospel,” an AI tool developed by the IDF, assists in locating and identifying military targets in real-time. Though the international community has condemned the tool, it has enabled the IDF to conduct strikes at a breakneck pace. This is precisely the type of operational improvement that we could see in every area of military operations, serving as a warning of how China could use AI to close the military gap.

However, all these advances hinge on that critical element: energy production. The future of AI, especially in military applications, demands a robust and reliable energy infrastructure. The Biden administration’s current energy policies prioritize climate alarmism over energy security and threaten our ability to meet the growing power demands of AI.

It’s time for a shift in our energy strategy. One leader, Donald Trump, has come out in favor of expanding our baseload power capacity to ensure a stable and sufficient electricity supply. This involves not only innovating in nuclear energy and other newer tech but also reinvesting in our dominant oil and gas industry to ensure we have the necessary power without compromising the grid. (READ MORE: The Military’s F-35 Fiasco)

The race for AI dominance is the key to winning future wars, and it is inseparable from the need for a secure energy infrastructure. To maintain our national security and technological edge, we must prioritize energy production and ensure that our policies support the growing demands of AI.

Philip Reichert is a conservative writer, activist, and contributor for Young Voices. He is a former U.S. Army intelligence analyst, contractor for the U.S. Space Force, and producer at Fox News. Follow him on Twitter at @PhilipReichert.

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