David A. Deptula, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general, is the dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
Debates over data center construction have generally targeted the issue as a local zoning nuisance or a threat to the environment and affordable electricity. But this overlooks a crucial fact: The rapid construction of data centers and advanced energy infrastructure required to power them are foundational to American military power and must be a national security priority.
Winning the wars of the future will require long-range precision weapons, advanced combat aircraft, resilient space systems, sophisticated missile defenses, and autonomous systems at sea, land and air — plus the data infrastructure to connect, train and sustain them all.
That last requirement is too often ignored.
The United States cannot prevail in the next era of military competition with assumptions about data infrastructure from the 20th century. Data is no longer merely a tool of commerce. It is a strategic asset. Nearly every function in the military depends on the ability to store, move, process, secure and exploit vast quantities of data at speed and scale.
A nation that cannot store and process data will not deter — nor, if necessary, defeat — a peer adversary.
Many communities are understandably worried that data centers are increasing electricity costs, water use, carbon emissions and noise. Opposition to their construction has become a bipartisan issue. But if the nation is to dominate the development of artificial intelligence, autonomous operations or the future of intelligence gathering, it needs the physical infrastructure.
The U.S. is the global leader in data center capacity. But China has made data infrastructure a strategic priority and is building capacity at astonishing speed. By 2030, it could easily double its current capacity, even while still trailing the U.S.
Those who doubt China’s ability to build quickly need only look at recent history. The country has laid thousands of miles of high-speed rail since 2008, its manufacturing sector is nearly double the size of America’s, and China dominates the production of consumer electronics, electric vehicles, advanced nuclear reactors, solar panels and many other high-tech products. Militarily, China already has the world’s largest navy and may have a fighter air force as large as the U.S. by 2028. When China’s State Council says it plans to “build an infrastructure that supports large-scale data circulation and interconnectivity,” the U.S. should take note.
A shortfall in data storage and computing capacity could be catastrophic. Success in future warfare will depend on whether a belligerent has the capability to sense, decide and act faster than an adversary. That requires enormous quantities of intelligence and reconnaissance, cyber, logistics, targeting and operational data. It requires computing capacity to train AI on all of it.
Ukraine has already demonstrated that the wars of the future will in part be fought by autonomous and remotely operated systems. The side that can connect data to decisions faster and more reliably than its adversary will be the one that wins on the battlefield.
In a future operation, data processing will affect everything from missile defenses and autonomous aircraft to deployment logistics and intelligence storage and analysis. In that environment, data infrastructure becomes critical to deterrence. Recent attacks by Iran on cloud and data infrastructure in the Middle East have only underscored how data centers are nodes of national power.
Americans do not want higher utility bills or strain on the environment, nor do they want poorly planned industrial development imposed on their communities without their consultation. But they also wouldn’t want China to win the AI race or to see U.S. forces outpaced in a fight over the Taiwan Strait.
If the U.S. is serious about preserving military superiority over China and other adversaries, then data must be treated as the critical asset it is while explaining to the public why it is needed. To build this infrastructure effectively, the approval processes required to build must be streamlined. It also needs power, which means building more energy capacity and strengthening the electrical grid. And to ensure its security and resilience it must be decentralized, which means data centers must be dispersed across the country — they can’t all be in Northern Virginia, as so many are.
The nation with the best data infrastructure will possess a decisive advantage in the next era of warfare. The U.S. cannot afford to lose that position.
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