AI and National Security: Harden the Grid To Win the Race

By: Harry Krejsa and Audrey Kurth Cronin

America’s electric grid represents a ‘soft target’ for international adversaries in the AI arms race. The country needs a new grid security framework to adapt to the changing nature of the threat.

Why it matters: Today, energy infrastructure is on the frontlines of global AI dominance. As a consequence, it represents a new, national target for international adversaries. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is exploiting the U.S.’s aging infrastructure’s vulnerabilities, pre-positioning malware to sabotage military and civilian services alike.

Key insight: To address this threat, the United States needs a new, national strategy to defend the grid. A Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy & Technology (CMIST) report shows how the U.S. can seize the opportunity of AI-driven energy expansion to provide both abundant power and the increased resilience our national security demands.

What we found: We are faced with a narrow window to transform vulnerability into strength. Every new data center connection, every grid modernization project, and every infrastructure investment is an opportunity to build something fundamentally more defensible and resilient. To do so, the U.S. must:

• Update federal cybersecurity frameworks to reflect how modern energy systems differ from their predecessors;
• Ensure industry coordination bodies integrate stakeholders who understand both cutting-edge technology and security imperatives; and
• Adopt a strategic approach that recognizes electricity generation, transmission, and storage as crucial to U.S. great power competition.

Catch up quick: We now know the PRC is actively embedding disruptive cyber capabilities on American critical infrastructure. And the Russian Federation is likely following Beijing’s playbook, and has already demonstrated the power of such capabilities in cyber attacks against Ukraine, disrupting its electrical grid and depriving millions of power.

In fact, these threats may be intensifying precisely because the AI race is accelerating. If American advances in AI threaten to cement a decisive technological lead — with all the military and economic advantages that some believe will come with it — Beijing's satisfaction with second-place status may shift dangerously. Our adversaries understand that crippling America's electricity infrastructure could derail our AI ambitions before we have the opportunity to turn a tenuous edge into an enduring advantage.

What's next: The vast majority of our patchwork of century-old infrastructure has internet connectivity awkwardly bolted onto systems that were never meant to be accessible to the outside world. This makes it a prime target for threats. 

• Upgrading energy infrastructure for AI offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to replace these vulnerable legacy systems with inherently more defensible technologies.
• Many modern energy systems, like advanced nuclear reactors, utility-scale batteries, and inverter-based resources, were designed from the ground up to be “digitally-native” and software-defined, capable of updates and adaptations as threats evolve. 

The bottom line: We cannot afford to power the future with infrastructure pre-compromised by our most capable adversaries. Ensuring that power flows abundantly and securely may determine not just who wins the AI race, but whether we can compete at all.