# The Power Trap: Why AI’s Energy Demands Risk Undermining American Operations in the Indo-Pacific > Source: > Published: 2026-07-21 06:00:48+00:00 Abstract: The United States (US) military is rapidly integrating artificial intelligence across operations, yet power, connectivity, and satellite communications infrastructure are struggling to keep pace. At the tactical edge, continuous AI inference workloads sharply increase power consumption and dependence on beyond-line-of-sight links, and in contested environments, electronic warfare can sever these links, forcing platforms onto localized processing that dramatically reduces … [Read more](https://smallwarsjournal.com/2026/07/21/ai-energy-demands-indo-pacific/) The post [The Power Trap: Why AI’s Energy Demands Risk Undermining American Operations in the Indo-Pacific](https://smallwarsjournal.com/2026/07/21/ai-energy-demands-indo-pacific/) appeared first on [Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University](https://smallwarsjournal.com).