OpenAI just delivered a stark warning to the White House: America is losing the AI arms race because China is building power infrastructure nearly 10 times faster. The company's 11-page policy brief calls for 100 gigawatts of new energy capacity annually, framing electricity as the new strategic resource that will determine AI supremacy between superpowers.
The math is sobering, and OpenAI isn't mincing words about it. While the U.S. added 51 gigawatts of power capacity last year, China built 429 gigawatts - enough to power roughly 343 million American households. That 8-to-1 disparity has the AI frontrunner sounding alarm bells in Washington.
"Electrons are the new oil," OpenAI declared in a blog post that accompanied its formal submission to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The company's message is clear: America's AI dominance hinges on solving an energy infrastructure crisis that most policymakers haven't fully grasped yet.
The timing of this policy push isn't coincidental. OpenAI has been on an infrastructure spending spree, inking deals for sprawling data centers that will demand unprecedented amounts of electricity. The company's recent partnership with Microsoft and other tech giants for data center buildouts represents billions in capital expenditure - all dependent on reliable power supply that America increasingly can't guarantee.
"Electricity is not simply a utility," the company wrote. "It's a strategic asset that is critical to building the AI infrastructure that will secure our leadership on the most consequential technology since electricity itself." That framing transforms what seems like a technical infrastructure issue into a national security imperative.
The 11-page brief reveals the scale of OpenAI's ambition and concern. The company wants America to commit to building 100 gigawatts of new capacity annually - nearly double what the country managed last year. To put that in perspective, 10 gigawatts powers roughly 8 million U.S. households, according to Energy Information Administration data.
But China's energy advantage goes beyond raw numbers. The country's centralized planning system lets it deploy massive infrastructure projects at speeds that leave American utilities scrambling. While U.S. power companies navigate regulatory hurdles and community opposition for years, China can greenlight and build gigawatt-scale facilities in months.
This "electron gap" - OpenAI's term for the growing energy disparity - threatens to undermine America's AI leadership just as the technology reaches an inflection point. The next generation of AI models will require exponentially more computational power, and that means exponentially more electricity.
