An adversary can interrupt an artificial intelligence system without defeating its software.It need only strike the infrastructure that keeps the system running.
Ukraine proved the point inside Russia this past week.President Trump and his national security team should take note before an enemy tries the same thing here.On October 8, a Ukrainian drone attack forced Yandex, the technology company often called "Russia’s Google," to suspend operations at its Sasovo data center.
The next day, another strike knocked out several modules at its Kaluga facility, which Yandex had called its most powerful data center in Russia.On October 11, the company announced that its Vladimir-region data center had shut down completely after a drone attack.
Ukraine disrupted three major Yandex computing facilities in four days.The Sasovo facility housed two of Yandex’s three supercomputers used to train its AI models, including YandexGPT.Yandex said it could not yet determine whether the equipment could be restored.
Whatever the final damage assessment, Russia’s leading AI developer lost a major computing hub in a single night.AMERICA MUST DEFEND OUR DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE, HERE AND OVERSEAS, TO WIN THE NEXT WARDuring my years as an Army officer and Pentagon strategist, I learned to judge a military capability by whether it would be there when needed.A weapon that dazzles on the test range becomes a liability when its supply line fails in combat.That standard should govern our dependence on AI.The word "cloud" hides the physical machinery behind computing services.
Those services require buildings, processors, electricity, cooling equipment and communications networks.The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency calls energy and communications "fundamental to the operation of practically every other critical infrastructure sector."THE AI REVOLUTION WILL GO WHEREVER THERE'S ELECTRICITY — AND CHINA KNOWS ITThat vulnerability reaches well beyond Russia.
Government miss...