Gabriel Collins and Christopher Bronk, “AI Geoeconomics: Allied Electricity and Secure Data Centers,” Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, December 18, 2025, https://doi.org/10.25613/T8RH-7H63.
Global information power depends on more than just software; it requires secure physical foundations — AI compute and the electricity grids that power it. This manuscript argues that the U.S. risks ceding strategic advantage to China by neglecting the “Cloud-Grid Nexus.” With PRC-linked entities already positioned to potentially influence power grids and 147 power plants across Southeast Asia, a critical digital battleground, the threat of hardware-enabled espionage and coercion is acute. To counter this, the authors propose a “Datacenters and Dynamos” strategy. This geoeconomic framework advocates for integrated U.S. and allied export financing to deploy secure computing capacity alongside reliable power generation. By treating data centers and power grids as a unified security asset, Washington can work to ensure the global AI ecosystem runs on “allied rails,” preventing a repeat of the 5G infrastructure crisis and securing the physical layers of information power.
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