CNAS Official Urges US Prepare Military Strikes on Chinese AI

Jacob Stokes, deputy director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, has called on the United States government to prepare for extreme measures to prevent China from achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI) first. In a report titled “Superpowers and AGI,” Stokes argues that the U.S. must assess the feasibility of diplomatic, espionage, cyber, and kinetic measures, including the use of missiles and bombs to destroy physical computing facilities.

Stokes suggests that the U.S. establish readiness drills and determine the intelligence requirements necessary to justify such actions. He specifically urged the National Security Agency and the Department of Defense to lead these assessments. While noting that the U.S. currently leads in frontier AI models, Stokes warned that Chinese progress in robotics and embodied AI could result in a surprise technological breakthrough.

Acknowledging the severity of these proposals, Stokes noted that bombing would cross a major threshold in U.S.-China relations. However, he maintains that these preparations are necessary to counter potential Chinese breakthroughs in offensive cyber weapons, suggesting that cyberattacks to sabotage AGI might not provoke the same level of large-scale retaliation as kinetic strikes.