CSIS If Compute Is the New Oil
Citation
Yacoubian, Mona, and Samuel Zabin. “If Compute is the New Oil, War in the Gulf Significantly Raises the Stakes.” Commentary, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Feb. 27, 2026. https://www.csis.org/analysis/if-compute-new-oil-war-gulf-significantly-raises-stakes. Read 2026-10-28.
Bottom line
- A commentary on compute as a strategic resource, like oil: big upfront investment, export controls, and exposure to disruption. Its subject is the Gulf states, not California.
Background
The authors are the director of the CSIS Middle East Program and an intern in it.
Key claims
- “If the 20th century ran on oil and steel, the 21st century runs on compute and the minerals that feed it.” The piece quotes this from the State Department’s Pax Silica Declaration (paragraph 1).
- “unlike oil, compute doesn’t have a single geographic capture point; instead, it relies on several strategic chokepoints, such as chips, software, energy, and data centers” (paragraph 2).
- “In 2023, data centers accounted for 4.4 percent of the United States’ annual energy consumption, a figure projected to triple by 2028.” The piece links an eScholarship (University of California) record for the figure.
⚠️ Contradiction: the source of the figure says “4.4% of total U.S. electricity consumption”, not energy. Its 2028 range, 325 to 580 TWh, is 1.8 to 3.3 times the 2023 use, so “triple” is only the top of the range (LBNL 2024 US Data Center Energy Usage Report, pp. 5-6).
- Domestic “permitting constraints and grid bottlenecks” increase pressure to locate compute abroad.
- Export approvals for “advanced Nvidia Blackwell chips” to G42 and Humain in late 2025 “were subject to both companies meeting strict security and reporting requirements”.
Evidence and method
An opinion commentary. CSIS states that “all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s)”. The facts it gives link to news, government pages and the eScholarship record of an LBNL report.
Limits
- It is about the Gulf and US foreign policy. It says nothing about California or public research compute.
- It is commentary, not peer-reviewed research.