Securing Superintelligence

Superintelligence would be a decisive national-security capability, but a country cannot reliably turn it into strategic advantage unless it can control or align it. Their useful definition is a system outperforming the best humans at almost everything, likely emerging through an unmistakable intelligence-explosion “hockey stick.” An AGI operating 10–100 times faster than humans might remain under “temporary slippery control”; a superintelligence outstripping humanity as adults outstrip toddlers probably would not.

America faces an “overconstrained problem”: racing China heightens loss-of-control risk, while slowing unilaterally could surrender strategic leverage to an adversary the guests do not currently trust. The guests argue that safety advocates and national-security officials each tend to minimize the other side’s premise. Both premises can be true, yet there is no hardware-backed “trust but verify” regime capable of reconciling them today.

Frontier-lab competition is increasingly pointed toward automating AI research, because machine-speed researchers could recursively improve the systems that created them. The upside for management is perfectly loyal employees who work continuously and do not leak at parties; the danger is that “this beast is starting to take on a life of its own.” Jeremie says OpenAI researchers appear more fearful of speaking than Anthropic staff and categorically argues that frontier labs are vulnerable to CCP penetration.

The investable infrastructure story is inseparable from physical security: facilities being designed now may host late-2026 or 2027 training runs, yet today’s data centers contain cheap, potentially catastrophic attack paths. Former special-operations personnel visiting a roughly $10 billion facility identified “one or two ops” costing about $30,000 that could disable it for a year. Even air gaps are insufficient against TEMPEST-style electromagnetic exfiltration unless spacing and shielding are designed in before construction becomes a “one-way door.”

Semiconductor and power supply chains create vulnerabilities that domestic compute spending alone cannot buy away quickly. TSMC fabrication sits in Taiwan; ASPEED reportedly accounts for 70–80% of the baseboard-management-controller market; and transformer supply chains include Chinese-made components, which the guests say have been used to plant infrastructure backdoors. A compromised controller or transformer could become a firmware-level backdoor, a remotely bricked asset, or a physical failure requiring replacements America may not manufacture.

Perfect defense is impossible, so the proposed security model is observability plus deterrence rather than an impregnable fortress. A project should raise attack costs until an adversary must marshal enough people, equipment, or access to create an intelligence signature—then pair detection with credible, controlled retaliation. “Stability between powers today is actually not maintained through actual defense,” Edouard argues; it rests on the threat of consequence.

The report is as much a warning about capex, governance, and centralization as a blueprint for winning an AI race. Nathan reads the surveillance, personnel vetting, supply-chain reconstruction, and retaliation requirements as reasons not to launch a national project; the Harrises call that reaction a “Rorschach test” but argue most security upgrades are necessary regardless. A genuine grand bargain would require secure, governable chips and verification hardware, yet slow design/fabrication cycles and uncertain tamper resistance leave “trust but verify” outside the likely near-term window.

🔗 Original source & video: Securing Superintelligence: National Security, Espionage & AI Control with Jeremie & Edouard Harris