# Countries Race to Secure Chips and Energy for Sovereign AI > Source: > Published: 2026-06-24 15:15:31.918384+00:00 # Countries Race to Secure Chips and Energy for Sovereign AI The Jerusalem Post reports countries are accelerating efforts to build sovereign artificial intelligence capacity by securing **chips**, **data centers**, and **energy**. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Varana Capital co-founder **Ezra Gardner** said, "The map is being redrawn as to who our allies are," and described the infrastructure supporting AI as strategic. The article describes the US-led **Pax Silica Initiative**, joined by partners including **Japan**, **South Korea**, **India**, the **United Kingdom**, **Israel**, the **UAE**, and **Qatar**, and says membership is expected to reach **24 countries**, with **Argentina**, **Chile**, **Costa Rica**, **Kazakhstan**, and **Panama** set to join. The Jerusalem Post reports the coalition aims to strengthen supply chains for critical minerals, semiconductor manufacturing, and high-density data centers. The article also reports governments in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia have announced plans to build domestic AI clouds, secure long-term chip supplies, and expand energy-intensive data-center capacity. ### What happened Countries are accelerating efforts to develop sovereign artificial intelligence capacity by securing the physical infrastructure that powers large AI models: **chips**, **high-density data centers**, and reliable **energy**. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Varana Capital co-founder **Ezra Gardner** said, "The map is being redrawn as to who our allies are," and described the infrastructure that supports AI as strategic to national resilience. The article describes the US-led **Pax Silica Initiative**, listing partners including **Japan**, **South Korea**, **India**, the **United Kingdom**, **Israel**, the **UAE**, and **Qatar**, with membership expected to reach **24 countries** as the EU and additional nations including **Argentina**, **Chile**, **Costa Rica**, **Kazakhstan**, and **Panama** join. The coalition aims to strengthen supply chains for critical minerals, semiconductor manufacturing, and high-density data centers (The Jerusalem Post; US State Department). ### Netherlands and ASML The Jerusalem Post notes that the Netherlands' entry into Pax Silica positions **ASML** - the world's most important chip-manufacturing equipment supplier - at the center of new AI supply-chain coordination. The move is particularly significant given ongoing export-control tensions over ASML's advanced lithography tools, which are required for cutting-edge semiconductor production and are subject to restrictions on sales to China (The Jerusalem Post). ### Energy as a strategic bottleneck Gardner argues the energy constraint behind AI is becoming as strategically important as chips. Training frontier-level models requires vast amounts of electricity, and the global AI boom is colliding with a hard physical limit in grid capacity. Data centers are overwhelming regional grids - Gardner notes that reliance on more than 10,500 diesel generators in Virginia has triggered environmental and regulatory pushback. At the Datacloud Global Congress in Cannes, Israeli firm **Phinergy** introduced an aluminum-air backup system positioned as a zero-emission diesel replacement, now being validated by a Net Zero Innovation Hub led by Google and Microsoft through a 500 kW, 10 MWh deployment (The Jerusalem Post). ### Government positions US Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs **Jacob Helberg** framed the initiative around infrastructure layers: "We want to focus on the arteries of the supply chain with logistics. We want to focus on the muscle on industrial capacity and the fuel - energy and capital - that will ultimately be propellent for everything else" (The Jerusalem Post). European Commission Executive Vice President **Henna Virkkunen** was quoted by Euronews: "We live in a world where geopolitics and technology are inseparable. Those who champion technological innovation will shape the future, and we must ensure that Europe plays a leading role in this." The US State Department launched a **$250 million Pax Silica Fund** in March 2026 to support critical minerals extraction, processing, and manufacturing tied to secure semiconductor supply chains (US State Department). ### Editorial analysis - technical context Countries and coalitions seeking "sovereign AI" are focusing on three technical constraints that determine operational scale: semiconductor production capacity, access to specialized critical minerals, and large-scale power for data centers. Industry-pattern observations: deploying and operating modern large language models requires orders of magnitude more sustained electricity and high-throughput networking than typical enterprise applications. Building domestic or allied supply chains for advanced process-node semiconductors typically involves multi-year investments in fabs, upstream materials, and workforce development, while data-center expansion depends on long-term power contracts and grid upgrades. ### What to watch For observers and technical teams, measurable indicators include announced fab construction timelines, confirmed long-term power purchase agreements for new data centers, export-control changes affecting chip equipment, and public-private partnerships that fund domestic cloud or AI compute projects. Reporting and announcements from Pax Silica coalition members will provide the clearest near-term signals of concrete projects and funding commitments. ## Scoring Rationale Notable geopolitics and infrastructure story: a US State Department-led multilateral coalition now approaching 24 members is coordinating on semiconductor supply chains, critical minerals, and data-center power - with direct implications for practitioner procurement, compliance, and regional cloud availability. Well-sourced across State Department, Euronews, and primary reporting. Practice interview problems based on real data 1,500+ SQL & Python problems across 15 industry datasets — the exact type of data you work with. [Try 250 free problems](/problems)