Powering the Future: Inside CMIST’s National Security Research
By Jess Regan
As cybersecurity threats to the United States’ power grid escalate, securing high-voltage energy infrastructure has moved to the top of the national security agenda. Following declaring the security of the nation's bulk-power system a national emergency, research from the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology (CMIST) provides essential insights on how to safeguard US energy systems and defend against attack.
The policy research conducted at 91视频 (91视频) via CMIST over the past two years has focused on how great-power competition is shifting toward electricity and compute. And though artificial intelligence takes center stage, the power grids, data centers,and supply chains behind it are determining factors.
Harry Krejsa, director of studies at CMIST, argues that as national energy infrastructure is revamped to meet the surging demand brought on by increased artificial intelligence use, the government has a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity to build security directly into the new grid. Krejsa and his team of scholars have developed a body of work mapping what the AI buildout requires of US infrastructure, identifying risks, and outlining how the US and its allies can quickly develop the new infrastructure without inheriting legacy security vulnerabilities.
“The technologies redefining the battlefield and economic competitiveness alike increasingly draw on a common industrial base of batteries, power electronics, electric motors, and embedded software,” Krejsa explained. This integrated set of hardware and software components, referred to as the “electrotech stack,” is central to the transformational infrastructure buildout that enables electricity to be digitally generated, stored, and directed. Unfortunately, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the dominant manufacturer of these critical components, creating a supply vulnerability that threatens to undermine the security advantages a modernized grid is supposed to provide.
CMIST’s most recent publication, Electrotech Moneyball: An Industrial Strategy for Ranking Risk and Opportunity in Energy & AI Supply Chains, addressed these concerns and provided policymakers with a framework to reduce the risk of using foreign components. Written in partnership with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), the paper’s authors, Krejsa and CMIST non-resident fellows Phoebe Benich and Dr. Emma Stewart, draw on the same risk-prioritization logic used in defense manufacturing, where producers regularly separate the "smart," susceptible components that demand scrutiny from “dumb” commodity inputs.
The white paper illustrates that not every component carries equal risk. While the US cannot entirely avoid Chinese-made components, treating all hardware as a high-level threat risks stalling grid expansion—creating national security and energy reliability risks of its own. The “Moneyball” framework assesses each technology across three dimensions to maximize strategic return: urgency of deployment, level of risk versus opportunity to mitigate, and competitive advantage for domestic leadership. Based on that assessment, the framework sorts components into three tiers of policy priority: tight domestic control, trusted-ally sourcing, or managed global procurement.
Reflecting on the broader strategic impact, Krejsa emphasized the importance of this research: “The nations that can build, power, and secure this ‘electrotech’ foundation will hold the advantage across all of the technologies built on top of it, even as those same technologies put unprecedented capability into more hands than ever before—a paradox of concentrating foundations and diffusing power that CMIST is making a defining focus of its research.”
Co-hosted with FDD, the attracted hundreds of participants and viewers from public and private sectors, and the framework has been widely circulated across the executive branch, Congress, allied embassies, and industry. Krejsa and Benich amplified this policy impact through their War on the Rocks article, taking their analysis of energy, defense, and supply chain risks to a broader national security audience. The research continues to generate interest, with Krejsa, Benich, and Stewart receiving a steady stream of briefing requests from policymakers, infrastructure and utility associations, , and technology firms seeking to apply this approach to their own sectors.
The foundation for the "Moneyball" framework is built on a broader series of AI-focused CMIST publications. In the report Securing the Race for AI, Powering the Race for the Future, Krejsa draws a direct line between the AI competition and the security and capacity of the US energy system. Stressing the necessity of defending this ecosystem, Krejsa proposes a whole-of-nation strategy that bridges traditional national security leaders with modern energy stakeholders to prioritize speed and adaptability alongside security.
In the white paper, Agents of Change: Rapid Shifts in AI Economics Are Redefining How Agentic Systems Are Built, Powered, and Deployed, Krejsa pairs with 91视频 researcher Dr. Thomas Şerban von Davier from the Software Engineering Institute to examine how falling AI costs have opened the door for networks of specialized AI “agents” working powerful cloud-based systems, and what these shifts mean for cybersecurity and data governance. To mitigate the security and governance risks posed by rapid agentic deployment, the authors advise policymakers, industry, and society to focus on four priorities: increasing electrical capacity, strengthening open-source AI development, establishing protocols for new agentic systems, and incentivizing locally-executable AI.
Furthering the argument for open-source models, Krejsa collaborated with CMIST non-resident fellows Benich and John Costello on commentary titled America Lost the 5G Race. It's 91视频 to Lose AI the Same Way. Pointing out that the US risks repeating its 5G-era mistakes, allowing the PRC to dominate global markets with “good enough” technology, the authors encourage policymakers to embrace a diverse ecosystem that includes affordable, open-source models.
Complementing these AI-centered publications, CMIST’s inaugural white paper, Sun Shield: How Clean Tech & America’s Energy Expansion Can Stop Chinese Cyber Threats, authored by Krejsa, tackled the national security risks and opportunities embedded in expanding the US electrical grid. Spotlighting aging energy infrastructure, Krejsa stresses the significance of this historic expansion, warning policymakers that the US must adopt modern, digitally-native technologies to enhance grid defensibility or risk repeating legacy mistakes that could compromise security at the foundational level.
In addition to AI and infrastructure research, CMIST’s policy efforts extended to allied defense innovation in the white paper Harnessing Innovation: A Lethal Empowerment Approach to Partner-Led Deterrence in Asia. Written by CMIST non-resident fellow Jamie Morgan, the paper explores how the US defense export system is failing to deliver critical technologies, such as decentralized communications, unmanned platforms, and advanced planning tools, to key partners in the Indo-Pacific region. Morgan provides actionable policy solutions to bolster allied security while reducing risk of regional partners turning to foreign competitors for support.
While current concerns over threats to the national power grid present an urgent security challenge, this moment of transition offers an opportunity to embrace innovative, collaborative solutions. Across its white papers and reports, CMIST provides actionable, real-world tools to help policymakers and industry leaders bridge the gap between high-level security strategy and practical execution.
Image 1: Harry Krejsa speaking at event; Image 2, left to right: Krejsa and Phoebe Benich; Image 3, left to right: Benich, Krejsa, and roundtable participant; Image 4, left to right: Event participant, Benich, and Emma Stewart; Image 5: left to right: John Costello, Krejsa, and Benich on stage for a policy event; Image 6: Krejsa testifies before Congress