America’s AI rival comes to our home turf. Here’s why electricians, not algorithms, will decide who wins

This week, as Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Washington to discuss economic competition, technology, and artificial intelligence, America’s leaders will spend considerable time debating chips, algorithms, export controls, and compute capacity.Those conversations matter. But beneath every debate over semiconductors and AI regulation sits a more fundamental question: Can America still build at the speed required to win?The AI competition will be decided by power generation, transmission capacity, critical infrastructure, and a skilled workforce. Software matters, but physical capacity determines who scales first. Innovation may begin on a laptop, but national leadership is ultimately built with concrete, steel, copper, and reliable power. Most people rarely think about the infrastructure behind an AI prompt, a banking transaction, or a telehealth visit. Digital services feel instant and limitless. Yet, every digital capability runs on power generation, substations, transmission lines, water stewardship, and data centers.For nearly 75 years, data centers have quietly powered the economy and national security apparatus. AI did not create our dependence on digital infrastructure. It exposed it while dramatically increasing the scale required for what comes next.There is nothing virtual about the digital economy. The cloud runs on dirt, diesel, power plants, equipment, and human talent.I learned that lesson serving aboard U.S. Navy nuclear submarines. Sophisticated technology is only as reliable as the physical systems supporting it. The same principle applies today: Software does not generate electricity, algorithms do not build substations, and no AI model can construct a transmission line.Those of us in the data center industry must acknowledge where we got it wrong.For decades, data centers operated largely out of public view, creating a vacuum filled by skepticism and mistrust. As projects grow larger, communities are asking reasonable questions about grid costs, electric rates, water use, and local economic benefits. These are not anti-data center questions. They are common-sense questions, and our industry must answer them directly.Washington received that message clearly when the House passed the Ratepayer Protection Act by a bipartisan vote of 417-3. Protecting ratepayers is neither partisan nor anti-growth. If America needs additional generation, transmission capacity, and substations to power next-generation technology, the public deserves confidence that costs are allocated fairly.Transparency builds trust. Trust enables growth. And growth is essential if America intends to remain globally competitive.The real bottleneck that no one is seriously addressing, except maybe Mike Rowe, is skilled labor and speed. Accountability cannot become paralysis. America does not have an innovation problem. America has a construction problem.Across the country, critical infrastructure projects face interconnection delays, permitting obstacles, equipment shortages, and labor constraints. Our competitors understand that technological leadership rests on physical capacity, and they are aggressively building power plants, transmission corridors, and industrial pipelines.The AI economy is being built by electricians, line workers, welders, technicians, operators, and construction teams every bit as much as software engineers.More than 200,000 service members transition from the military each year. They bring technical expertise, leadership under pressure, and experience operating mission-critical systems. Connecting transitioning veterans to infrastructure careers is not simply a workforce solution. It is a national security imperative.The path forward For generations, America’s competitive advantage came from a simple formula: we innovated, and we built simultaneously. We constructed the power grids, highways, ports, telecommunications networks, and factories that transformed big ideas into national strength.Today, the answer is not choosing between communities and competitiveness, or between protecting ratepayers and winning the AI era. We can and must do both. Developers should be accountable, communities respected, ratepayers protected, and America committed to building with urgency.As national leaders discuss competition this week, they should remember a simple truth: The future belongs to countries that can build. Build power. Build infrastructure. Build workforce capacity. Build trust.THE AI APOCALYPSE HYPOTHESIS HAS A FATAL FLAW: THE TRAINING DATAThe future of AI will be determined not by the quality of our algorithms, but by our ability to execute at scale.America has done this before. We built grids, highways, ports, factories, and communications networks that powered a century of growth. To lead the AI era, we need the same mindset: build faster, build responsibly, and build now.Kirk Offel is a Navy nuclear attack submarine veteran and the CEO of Overwatch Mission Critical, a Texas-based Service-Disabled Veteran Owned data center company that trains and hires future leaders for high-skill jobs in the data center industry. He is a Top 10-ranked global voice on data centers. Mike Sarraille, a retired Navy SEAL and former Recon Marine, is the host of Fox Nation’s “Final Flight: The Men of Extortion 17.” He is also the chief talent officer of Overwatch Mission Critical. He is the #3 leadership speaker in the world and author of two bestselling books, The Talent War and The Everyday Warrior.