Former White House adviser Jacob Stokes argued that the United States should prepare to intervene if China comes closer first to artificial general intelligence (AGI). The options discussed include espionage, cyber operations and, in an extreme scenario, military attacks on Chinese data centers.
The proposal comes from the report Superpowers and AGI, published by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) on August 27. Stokes worked on the national security team of then-Vice President Joe Biden during the Barack Obama administration and is now deputy director of the institute's Indo-Pacific Security program.
The recommendations do not represent a policy announced by the US government. The document is an exercise on how Washington could react if the technological dispute with Beijing reached the point of one of the countries being close to developing AGI.
Report envisions intervention to prevent Chinese breakthrough
In the executive summary, Stokes recommends that Washington carry out scenario exercises to test "when and how the United States could intervene to prevent China from developing AGI". The report also proposes that the country prepare to reverse-engineer or obtain the technology through espionage if Beijing gets there first.
The CNAS document is broad and does not specify in the summary which military actions could be adopted. The reference to attacks on Chinese data centers appears in the report from the South China Morning Post, which covered statements made by Stokes at an online event on Thursday (3).
According to the newspaper, the researcher argued that the US government should assess in advance the feasibility of diplomatic, espionage, cyber and kineticmeasures, a term used in security for actions involving the physical use of force.
Stokes also said that agencies such as the Department of Defense and the National Security Agency (NSA) should begin determining what intelligence information would be needed to justify such measures. He compared the exercise to the strategic preparation process adopted in the past regarding the implications of nuclear weapons.
AGI becomes a variable in the US-China dispute
AGI is the name given to a hypothetical system capable of achieving human-like performance across a wide variety of tasks. CNAS itself notes that the report does not attempt to predict whether or when such technology will be achieved; the study deliberately starts from a scenario in which it is close or already exists to analyze the geopolitical consequences.
In addition to preparing possible interventions, the report recommends preventing American resources and technologies from contributing to the advancement of Chinese AI, improving the ability to track the development of frontier models, and creating diplomatic channels with Beijing and allies focused specifically on artificial intelligence.
The study also considers the possibility of a Chinese "technological surprise" rapidly reducing the American advantage. Stokes points to China's advances in areas such as robotics and artificial intelligence embedded in physical systems as factors that could alter the race.
Even in that scenario, the report argues that reaching AGI first would not automatically mean geopolitical dominance. The advantage would depend on the ability to turn the technology into economic, military and strategic gains — an uncertainty that, for Stokes, reinforces the need for Washington to define in advance how it would react to a possible Chinese breakthrough.
