As warfare is reinvented in Ukraine, and Silicon Valley races to maintain its A.I. lead, China’s battery dominance is raising alarms far beyond the auto industry.

Hiroko TabuchiBrad Plumer and Harry Stevens

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Power ︎ Moves

As warfare is reinvented in Ukraine, and Silicon Valley races to maintain its A.I. lead, China’s battery dominance is raising alarms far beyond the auto industry. A data center in Ashburn, Va. Immense batteries are critical to protect sensitive A.I. computer software. In Northern Virginia’s Data Center Alley, windowless buildings the size of aircraft hangars are powering America’s artificial intelligence industry, which is locked in a race against China. Yet, these data centers are increasingly reliant on China, America’s geopolitical rival, for a vital technology: batteries.

These facilities can use as much electricity as a small city, straining local power grids. Even flickers can have cascading effects, corrupting sensitive A.I. computer coding. To cope, tech giants are looking to buy billions of dollars of large lithium-ion batteries, a field in which “China is leading in almost every industrial component,” said Dan Wang, an expert on China’s technology sector at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. “They’re ahead, both technologically and in terms of scale.”