U.S. companies need a pathway to convert Venezuela’s energy resources into computing capacity.
U.S. companies need a pathway to convert Venezuela’s energy resources into computing capacity.
I n July, Venezuela became a founding member of the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO), a China-initiated intergovernmental body headquartered in Shanghai. Twenty-nine countries signed the founding agreement, including Russia, Belarus, Cuba, Brazil, and Venezuela.
Venezuela is not an artificial intelligence power, but it could become a consequential part of the AI economy because of its extraordinary energy base: approximately 303 billion barrels of reported proven oil reserves, about 70 percent of Latin America and the Caribbean’s natural-gas reserves, a large hydroelectric system, and several gigawatts of currently stranded or wasted energy. That resource base could give Venezuela a comparative advantage in energy-intensive data centers, AI training, and high-performance computing.
This is why the U.S. should respond to this development. Venezuela’s world-class energy resources should not be under China’s control. Venezuela should be the battery of the Americas, supplying the additional energy capacity required for the United States to accelerate its AI leadership.
China began the process of establishing its AI global framework before WAICO formally existed. In July 2025, Beijing published its Global AI Governance Action Plan and proposed creating an international AI cooperation organization. The plan explicitly connected AI development with clean power, next-generation networks, computing capacity, data centers, technical standards, and support for developing countries. WAICO’s establishment one year later gives that agenda an institutional vehicle.
The United States is developing its own response. Pax Silica, the State Department’s initiative on AI and supply-chain security, links technological leadership to critical minerals, energy, semiconductor manufacturing, compute infrastructure, and trusted supply chains. The competition is therefore extending beyond algorithms and advanced chips. Both governments increasingly understand that technological power depends on who can finance, secure, and integrate the physical systems required to sustain computation.
Venezuela could eventually become relevant to the U.S.–China global AI competition because of its exceptional energy resource base. In addition to Venezuela’s considerable oil endowments, natural gas reserves, and hydroelectric capacity mentioned above, the country flared approximately 8.3 billion cubic meters of gas in 2024. That volume could support roughly 3.1 to 4.6 gigawatts of continuous electricity generation, which is the energy equivalent of several large power plants.
This matters because electricity is becoming a constraint on the expansion of artificial intelligence. Training clusters and high-performance computing facilities require large volumes of continuous power, while data-center development in the United States increasingly faces generation shortages, transmission bottlenecks, interconnection delays, and local opposition. Under the right conditions, Venezuela could eventually host electricity-intensive workloads for which energy availability matters more than proximity to large consumer markets.
WAICO membership does not require Venezuela to purchase Chinese turbines, telecommunications equipment, cloud services, or data-center technology, but it could reach that point. The governments and companies that first finance Venezuela’s power plants, transmission assets, digital networks, and computing infrastructure could influence technical standards, suppliers, maintenance relationships, and future procurement for decades.
China’s July 2025 AI governance plan treated electricity, networks, compute capacity, data centers, standards, and developing-country infrastructure as components of technological power. Venezuela’s entry into WAICO places it inside the institutional architecture created to advance that approach.
To counter this development, the United States should compete on the same terrain. The State Department should incorporate a Venezuela energy-and-compute strategy into Pax Silica, linking future technological integration to the rehabilitation of stranded electricity and the development of new generation capacity. The Treasury Department should issue a general license authorizing qualifying AI, data-center, and high-performance-computing investment tied to incremental energy projects in Venezuela. The Commerce Department should establish the corresponding safeguards for advanced processors, servers, networking equipment, and other controlled technologies.
By executing these policies, Washington would give American firms a regulated pathway to convert Venezuela’s world-class energy resources into productive compute capacity, strengthening U.S. technological dominance. It would also link the country’s reconstruction to U.S. capital, technology, and standards, which is part of building a credible and prosperous free-market economy in Venezuela.