How China’s control of battery supply chains is becoming a critical risk for U.S. military power and AI initiatives — reducing reliance will take nearly a decade

When U.S. defense planners talk about supply chain risk, semiconductors usually dominate the conversation. But a quieter dependency is drawing growing attention inside the Pentagon and across the tech industry: batteries. From AI training clusters and hyperscale data centers to drones, satellites, and electric military vehicles, modern computing and warfare now rely on lithium-ion batteries and the materials that enable them.

According to a New…