A new opinion piece from two military veterans turned infrastructure executives argues that America’s edge in artificial intelligence will be decided not in software labs but in power plants, transmission lines and data centers — and that the United States is falling behind China in building them.
The argument comes from Kirk Offel, a Navy nuclear attack submarine veteran and CEO of Overwatch Mission Critical, a Texas-based, Service-Disabled Veteran Owned data center company, and Mike Sarraille, who served with special operations forces during the Global War on Terror. Writing for Fox News Opinion, the two say the lessons they learned in uniform — that reliable information delivered at the right moment can save lives — apply directly to the infrastructure fight now underway around AI.
Their central claim is that winning the AI race depends on physical capacity: power generation, transmission lines, data centers and a trained workforce. “If we fail at that part of the equation, it won’t matter how innovative we are,” they write.
Permitting delays and a competitor moving faster
Offel and Sarraille point to permitting delays, grid bottlenecks and supply-chain constraints as obstacles slowing new power generation and transmission in the U.S. at the exact moment AI and advanced computing are driving unprecedented electricity demand.
Meanwhile, they argue, China is not waiting. The authors say Beijing is aggressively expanding power generation, transmission, manufacturing and computing capacity because technological leadership requires physical capacity, while Washington remains focused on debating how AI should be governed.
The “Fifth Utility”
The authors want Americans to rethink how they view data centers, describing them not as ordinary commercial buildings full of servers but as part of what they call the “Fifth Utility” — the interconnected compute, power, fiber and digital infrastructure underpinning banking, healthcare, transportation, commerce, emergency communications, national intelligence and defense.
That reframing, they say, doesn’t mean communities should have to accept new development without scrutiny. Residents deserve answers about how data center projects will affect power, water, land and electricity rates, and developers have an obligation to engage communities early and invest responsibly where they build. The authors insist ratepayer and community protections can coexist with the buildout the country needs — and that both must happen at once.
A workforce pipeline from the military
Offel and Sarraille also make the case for tapping military veterans to fill the skilled labor gap in this buildout. Data centers and power plants require electricians, line workers, welders, high-voltage technicians, construction professionals and mission-critical operators, they note. With roughly 200,000 service members leaving the military each year, many carrying technical discipline, leadership and adaptability, the authors argue that building stronger pathways from military service into critical infrastructure careers should be treated as a national strategy rather than a workforce side project.
“We spent our military careers understanding that information superiority matters only if you have the people, systems and infrastructure to deliver it when it counts. Technology may have changed, but the principle hasn’t.”
The authors close by warning that the country’s advantages in capital, energy resources, technology and talent won’t last indefinitely if the U.S. spends years building what rivals are constructing right now. “If America intends to lead the digital age, we need to start building like it,” they write.
