OPINION:
It’s another race we can’t afford to lose.
America must lead the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI) because it is a transformative frontier not only in computing, but also national defense and economic growth. But while we pour billions of dollars into chips and algorithms, a fundamental requirement cannot be overlooked: energy. Specifically, affordable, abundant, and reliable energy.
If the United States fails to address this need immediately, it won’t matter how advanced our processors are or how innovative our coders may be. The AI revolution like the Space Race of the 20th century will be won not only by software but by the strength of our fuel supply. We need policies that ensure we don’t lose.
A recent analysis released by my organization, titled “Rocket Fuel for America’s AI Moonshot,” lays out the stakes in sobering detail. Its conclusion is clear: America cannot win the AI race if we tie our own hands with energy policies that undermine the stable, large-scale power needed to support datacenters, GPU clusters, and future AGI breakthroughs. China, Russia, and the oil-rich Middle East understand this and are acting accordingly by expanding coal fleets, courting datacenter investment, and casting off climate commitments to secure energy dominance. Meanwhile, too many American policymakers are still pretending that windmills and solar panels can do the job.
They cannot. Not for this.
To achieve AGI dominance, our nation needs to scale electricity production rapidly and reliably. Datacenters already consuming 25% of Virginia’s electricity could use nearly half of that state’s power by 2030. Nationally, Morgan Stanley estimates AI-related electricity demand will increase 70% per year, reaching the equivalent of Spain’s total power consumption by as soon as 2027. This isn’t a forecast; it’s a warning.
Where will that power come from?
Wind and solar, still heavily reliant on foreign supply chains, are intermittent and land-hungry. Nuclear, while promising, won’t be ready to scale in time due to a regulatory bottleneck and the atrophied supply chain for critical materials. Even fusion remains out of reach in the next decade.
That leaves us with the one source of energy America has in abundance, with the infrastructure to deliver it and the price stability to support mass deployment: natural gas.
Natural gas already generates nearly half of our nation’s electricity. It is clean-burning, cost-effective, and plentiful. Yet the regulatory regime under the Biden administration actively discouraged its use. Permitting pipelines and power plants is not done overnight. Legal attacks from environmental NGOs stall even the most modest projects. And distorted subsidies for renewables some so generous that operators are paid to *not* generate power undermine the economics of reliable generation.
The result is a grid under stress, electricity prices climbing, and tech companies scrambling to secure off-grid natural gas to keep their AI ambitions alive. Even Microsoft is backing what will be the nation’s largest natural gas power plant while simultaneously pledging carbon negativity by 2030. The hypocrisy would be comical if the consequences weren’t so severe.
America needs to get serious. That means embracing natural gas as the strategic fuel it is the rocket fuel for AGI.
Just as kerosene and liquid oxygen powered the Saturn V to the Moon, natural gas can power America’s AI ascent. History has already taught us what happens when we ignore basic technological realities in favor of ideological fantasies.
When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, the United States didn’t pledge to reach the Moon with reusable hemp gliders. We picked the most energy-dense, reliable fuel we could find, and we used it at scale to win. We must do the same today.
Winning the AGI race won’t require central planning. But it will require policy clarity: fast-track permitting for new gas plants and pipelines; protection of existing coal and gas baseload; reform of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to limit frivolous legal challenges; and repeal of tax credits that warp electricity markets in favor of unreliable power.
We should direct executive orders to unlock domestic production and transmission capacity, because China, Saudi Arabia, and Russia aren’t waiting for local planning boards to approve their energy infrastructure. They are building. And unless we match them, the world’s most transformative technology will be hosted on servers thousands of miles away subject to censorship, espionage, or worse.
AGI, like the space race, is a moment of national consequence. The nation that controls AGI will shape the global economy, dominate defense capabilities, and lead the next century. But we won’t get there on vibes and solar panels. We’ll get there the same way we always have, with determination, ingenuity, and fuel that works.
We are sitting on the answer. It’s beneath our feet. It’s time to use it.
• Daniel Turner is the founder and executive director of Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs. Twitter/X: @DanielTurnerPTF
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