Power and Silicon — The Geopolitics of Compute Supply Chains
AI geopolitics now revolves around compute where nations are competing for chips, energy, and infrastructure. Who will control the next decade of intelligence?
Behind every breakthrough in artificial intelligence lies a simple fact that models need compute, and compute depends on silicon. As nations push deeper into AI development, the control of chip manufacturing and energy infrastructure has become a new axis of geopolitical power.
The Anatomy of Compute
An AI model is only as capable as the hardware it runs on. Advanced chips like NVIDIA’s H100, AMD MI300X, or custom architectures such as Cerebras and Graphcore are now the real currency of intelligence.
But these aren’t produced everywhere. Over 90% of the world’s most advanced chips are fabricated in Taiwan. The rest depend on supply chains that span fragile borders, from rare-earth mining in Africa to fabrication plants in South Korea and Arizona.
Strategic Dependencies
This concentration of capability creates both opportunity and vulnerability. Governments are racing to secure chip sovereignty, not just for economic growth, but for national security. The U.S. CHIPS Act, India’s semiconductor mission, and EU’s Chips Act are all efforts to decentralize the world’s silicon ecosystem.
Energy As the New Boundary
Compute isn’t just about chips, it’s about power. Training frontier models demands gigawatts of electricity. Nations with cleaner, more reliable energy grids will control the pace of future AI research. Iceland and Canada are emerging as neutral hubs for energy-intensive compute clusters, powered by renewables.
Data, Diplomacy, and Deterrence
AI compute centers are increasingly being treated like strategic assets. Some countries restrict AI exports that could strengthen rivals’ military or surveillance capabilities. Others are forming alliances around shared compute infrastructure — like Japan’s ABCI or Europe’s GAIA-X.
Diplomacy now includes clauses about algorithmic capacity and data sovereignty.
The Infrastructure Layer of Geopolitics
If the 20th century was defined by oil, the 21st is being defined by compute. The pipelines are different, but the stakes are familiar; control the flow, and you control the future.
The geopolitics of AI is not fought in boardrooms or labs alone, but in fabrication plants, data centers, and energy corridors that determine who can train, deploy, and govern intelligence.
A Distributed Destiny
In time, nations will likely form federated compute networks that are shared yet sovereign clusters that balance innovation with security. It’s not a war of algorithms, but of access. And the power to compute may soon be the power to decide.
