China's Battery Dominance Raises Concerns for U.S. AI and Defense

In Northern Virginia, data centers powering America's artificial intelligence industry are increasingly reliant on China for lithium-ion batteries. These facilities consume as much electricity as a small city, and even minor power disruptions can corrupt sensitive A.I. coding.

According to Dan Wang, an expert at Stanford's Hoover Institution, China leads in both technology and scale in the battery sector. Meanwhile, the Pentagon expresses similar concerns, emphasizing that modern military strategies will require millions of batteries for drones and lasers, with many components sourced from China.

A defense analytics firm, Govini, reports that U.S. military forces depend on Chinese supply chains for approximately six thousand individual battery components across various weapons programs. The report highlights how China's dominance in the battery supply chain poses a national security threat, as it controls critical stages of lithium-ion battery production, including mining and refining.

For example, China accounts for eighty-six percent of global graphite mining, forty-six percent of lithium mining, and dominates the refining process for multiple essential materials. This dependence on Chinese batteries has raised alarms beyond the auto industry, prompting concerns over the potential risks to American advancements in A.I. and defense technologies.