Winning the AI Race Runs Through Wi-Fi 

Washington is consumed with artificial intelligence, and understandably so. The United States is locked in a technology race with China that will shape our economic and national security for a generation. So far, the AI race has largely focused on the mad dash in the United States to build vital data centers that serve as the beating heart of AI compute. As a result, too little attention has been paid to the way in which that beating heart will get the lifeblood of AI’s data to the individuals in ourhomes, businesses, schools and hospitals across the country. 
 
Every AI query makes the same trip. That query is born in a data center, crosses the country on privately built broadband, and covers its final stretch over Wi-Fi. Those final feet, in homes, hospitals, factories, classrooms, and offices, are where people actually experience AI. Between 80 and 90 percent of smartphone traffic ends up riding Wi-Fi rather than cellular networks, and nearly every wired broadband subscription terminates at a Wi-Fi router. As AI fills our surroundings with connected intelligence, from warehouse robotics to medical devices to kitchen assistants, the density of demand on these local networks will explode. 
 
Wi-Fi is the most American of technologies. Running over unlicensed spectrum, open to anyone, no permission slip required, built by entrepreneurs rather than government labs. Success has been market driven, not mandated, contrasting sharply with China’s state-controlled, licensed model. An economic engine in its own right expected to generate $2.4 trillion in annual value for the United States by 2027, with jobs tied to the 6 GHz band alone projected to grow from two million to more than 13 million by 2032. 
 
Beijing understands this contest as a national project. The Chinese Communist Party is building infrastructure and promoting homegrown wireless standards abroad with the explicit aim of leapfrogging American connectivity. Meanwhile, Brussels has written itself out of the race by regulating first and innovating never. House Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie said it simply, “We’re not competing with Europe to regulate, we’re competing with China to innovate.” 
 
To keep pace with China in the AI race, America’s Wi-Fi networks need to continue to be supported and protected.  The FCC has already made the forward-looking decision to allocate the entire 6 GHz band for unlicensed (e.g., Wi-Fi) use.  Now is not the time to revisit that decision or change direction as the 6 GHz band is needed now more than ever to accommodate the sharp increase in data traffic in our homes, businesses and elsewhere to handle AI demand. 
 
And while spectrum allocation is federal, states play a vital role as well in determining whether the Wi-Fi advantage ever reaches their citizens. That is because Wi-Fi is only as good as the broadband network behind it and the buildings and businesses deploying it. 
 
A state that slow-walks permits, lards up pole attachment disputes, rate regulation, or technology mandates onto broadband throttles its own AI economy at that final connection. A state that treats network builders as partners rather than revenue sources gets the gigabit connections that make next-generation Wi-Fi meaningful. State legislators and county officials can also make their voices heard in Washington, urging Congress and the FCC to preserve the full 6 GHz band for unlicensed use and to open additional spectrum as AI demand accelerates, rather than auctioning away the foundation of America’s Wi-Fi leadership. 
 
The playbook for winning the AI race is not complicated. Welcome the data centers and the energy to power them. Clear the path for private broadband investment. Resist the urge to regulate a technology still being invented. And remember that the AI economy ends not at a server rack but at a wireless router, over spectrum kept free precisely so that Americans would not need permission to innovate. Government at the federal, state, county and local levels that get this right will not just participate in the AI era. They will define it.