Ronald Reagan understood that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. Preserving it requires more than resolve. It requires the willingness to build.
As Ohioans celebrate America’s 250th birthday, we face a test Reagan would have recognized. We confront a rising authoritarian adversary, a technology race with profound consequences for both prosperity and security, and a question of whether this generation has the will to compete. The answer must be yes, and Ohio has a vital role to play.
The Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI’s 2026 AI Index makes clear what is at stake. China has narrowed the gap with the United States in cutting-edge AI models, and the competition for global technological supremacy is intensifying by the day.
America still holds a commanding advantage in domestic computing infrastructure, with 5,427 data centers and more than 10 times any other nation’s total. That edge is not just an economic statistic. It is a strategic asset, and Ohio can help defend and extend it.
This is not a new role for our state. Ohioans have always answered the call to build what the country needed. They built factories and farms, power systems and highways, universities and communications networks, and the production capacity that helped win two world wars. The tradition continues today at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which remains essential to American defense, and at advanced manufacturing projects like Anduril’s Arsenal-1 facility in Pickaway County. Ohio does not just participate in American strength. It helps create it.
The infrastructure of the AI age is as foundational to national security today as steel and ships were in 1944. That infrastructure includes energy, semiconductors, data centers, computing power and the skilled workers to operate them. These are not abstract technology investments. They support hospitals, schools, manufacturers, logistics networks, first responders and the secure digital systems on which modern commerce and government depend. More to the point, they are part of what determines whether the United States or the Chinese Communist Party shapes the future of the global information environment.
That is a question of freedom, not just competitiveness.
Free markets, not government mandates, should drive this development. Private capital is already moving. AWS made an early bet on Ohio, and others followed, because our state offers the workforce, land, energy infrastructure and institutional assets to make these projects viable. The job of state and local government is not to manage that process from above. It is to set clear rules, enforce accountability and get out of the way of private enterprise doing what it does best.
Communities are right to ask hard questions. What are the energy and water demands? What do tax arrangements look like? What commitments are being made, and how will they be enforced? These are legitimate concerns, and developers who cannot answer them clearly do not deserve the benefit of the doubt. Good projects survive scrutiny. The solution is not more bureaucracy. It is more transparency and genuine accountability to the people who live where these facilities will be built.
Ohio should welcome responsible growth, but it should not manufacture obstacles that drive investment away. The jobs, tax revenue and national security contributions that come with data center development are too important to lose to excessive caution. If we turn away this investment, we cede ground to competitors who have no such hesitation and no commitment to the values that have made America worth defending.
Reagan knew that America’s greatness was never accidental. It was the product of free people making hard choices and doing the work. On America’s 250th birthday, Ohio has a choice to make. We can help build the computing infrastructure that will sustain American leadership through the AI age, or we can stand aside while others do.
I believe Ohioans will choose to build. We always have.
Ken Blackwell served as Ohio secretary of state and state treasurer and was the Republican nominee for governor of Ohio in 2006. He is a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and a former board member of the U.S. Air Force Academy Foundation and the International Republican Institute.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Ohio can help America win the artificial intelligence race | Opinion
Reporting by Ken Blackwell, Opinion contributor / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Ken Blackwell, Opinion contributor | USA TODAY Network
