Ismael Arciniegas Rueda
The escalating technology competition between the United States and China is reshaping global dynamics. As artificial intelligence (AI) emerges as a critical frontier of this competition, the U.S. must strategically enhance its infrastructure to maintain technological leadership. Three interconnected policy areas—power grid enhancement, hardware innovation, and infrastructure expertise—are key components of a comprehensive plan to secure strategic advantage for the United States.
Revitalizing the U.S. power grid is critical to unlocking sustainable support for energy-intensive technologies. To do this, the U.S. will need to improve its access to needed hardware and develop the kind of infrastructure expertise China has been amassing in recent years.
The U.S. power grid is old, with at least 70% of transmission lines over 25 years old, and in need of large investments to maintain reliability standards. The grid is currently operating at capacity, with the demands of frontier technologies like AI exacerbating congestion issues. Reports indicate that grid congestion is already impeding technological advancement and the future development and adoption of AI could significantly increase energy needs, despite gains in energy consumption efficiency.
Power grid revitalization rests on sourcing key hardware domestically. Developing local manufacturing options hinges on a number of factors including raw material availability, capital mobilization for increased manufacturing and a dynamic local value chain, to name a few. There are already concerns about the sourcing of critical elements, such as power grid transformers.
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