Machinepower Index / Dossiers / United States
United States
Total Sovereignty — Own every layer — energy, fabs, frontier models, talent and the rules they run under. Only two nations can afford the attempt, and neither reaches true autarky.
Score comes from the twelve measurements beneath the three layers. A nation needs all of them at once — world-class models are no use on a grid that cannot power them — so one weak measurement pulls the Score down instead of being averaged away. Potential is the plain average of the three layers. The gap between the two is what being lopsided costs: nothing if a nation is evenly built, more the further its strengths and weaknesses sit apart. The exact formula is on the methodology page.
The three layers
Energy, grids, data centres and silicon — the physical capacity to run models at scale.
Models, alignment capability, standards influence and the talent that produces them.
The capacity to wire AI into the state and the economy while holding public consent.
Where the score comes from
Each layer is the plain average of its four measurements. The Score uses those twelve measurements directly rather than the three averages, because averaging hides things: a 10 next to a 3 comes out as a forgettable 6.5, and you lose both facts. Every measurement is scored 0–10 and marked to show where the number came from.
| Layer | Sub-dimension | Basis | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Watts | Planning & Permitting | Assessed | 7.8 |
| Firm Power Capacity | Dataset | 8.9 | |
| Sovereign Compute | Dataset | 10.0 | |
| Hardware & Silicon Access | Dataset | 10.0 | |
| Weights | Frontier Model Output | Dataset | 10.0 |
| Alignment Capability | Assessed | 8.8 | |
| Regulatory Standing | Dataset | 8.2 | |
| Talent Density | Dataset | 9.8 | |
| Will | State Procurement | Dataset | 8.8 |
| Public Sector Adoption | Dataset | 9.3 | |
| Workforce Transition | Assessed | 7.6 | |
| Public Trust | Dataset | 5.2 |
Dataset means the number comes straight from a published source. Assessed means we judged it ourselves, because no dataset measures that thing cleanly — 3 of the 12 here, and 116 of 312 across the Index. The CSV export flags them too.
Sources
Every source below was published within the last 12 months. These are the main ones behind the United States's profile. The full list, and the rule on how recent a source has to be, are on the methodology page.
El Capitan (LLNL) leads US sovereign installations at 1.809 exaflops on the June 2026 TOP500 list, second globally behind China's LineShine.
View source →The US released 59 notable AI models in 2025 (vs China's 35) and attracted $285.9B in private AI investment — roughly 23x China's recorded private total.
View source →The US ranks first in the 2025 Government AI Readiness Index across 69 indicators covering government, technology sector, and data & infrastructure pillars.
View source →Chokepoints — what the world cannot get anywhere else
The United States controls three of the six steps in building an AI chip, and nobody else can work around them. A step is listed only where the firms that dominate it are based in the United States and the government could actually shut it off. See the whole chain.
Almost no advanced chip is designed without American electronic design automation tools. Withdrawing them stops a design programme before any silicon exists, and Washington has done exactly that.
US Bureau of Industry and Security →Nvidia designs the overwhelming majority of AI accelerators, and Washington has repeatedly restricted which nations may buy them. The design sits in California even when the manufacturing does not.
US Bureau of Industry and Security →The Foreign Direct Product rule lets Washington restrict foreign-made goods if they were built using American technology. Because ASML machines and Japanese tooling both contain American parts and software, this reaches into chokepoints the United States does not own. In 2023 both the Netherlands and Japan brought in their own export controls that lined up with American ones. This is the strongest entry on the list: it is a law rather than an industry, and it sits on top of everyone else's position.
US Bureau of Industry and Security →Listed, not scored. None of this lifts the Index Score. The Index measures what a nation can do on its own. This is a different kind of power — what everyone else cannot do without it. Eighteen of the twenty-five nations control nothing like this.
Bottlenecks
These hold the United States below its Potential. Its two lowest scores cost it the most: public trust at 5.2 (part of Will) and workforce transition at 7.6 (part of Will).
Assessment
The global leader in intelligence power, the US maintains a dominant position through its control of the primary model weights and semiconductor design. However, bottlenecks in energy grid permitting and domestic state diffusion remain key challenges to total sovereign capacity.
The art of the possible
Fixing grid interconnection queues is the single highest-leverage move available to any nation in the Index: the US already leads on models, chips and capital, and every megawatt it unlocks compounds an existing lead. Faster federal permitting plus public-sector adoption would push the leader further from the pack.
Strategic play — Total Sovereignty
Own every layer — energy, fabs, frontier models, talent and the rules they run under. Only two nations can afford the attempt, and neither reaches true autarky.
The play is editorial, not scored: it names the game the United States's measured position supports. Eight plays run across the Index — Total Sovereignty, Strategic Autonomy, Chokepoint Leverage, Diffusion Advantage, Compute Rentier, Specialist Power, Sovereign Capital and Siege Autarky.
Open United States in the live Index → — every source behind every number, the comparison tool and the CSV export.