NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. (AP) — American troops need to prepare for combat not only in Earth's orbit but around the moon, President Donald Trump’s top military adviser said Wednesday, looking ahead to a new frontier in warfare after the U.S. revealed for the first time that it has deployed weapons in space.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told service members and industry figures at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference outside Washington that the U.S. military should adapt now so it “is prepared to fight, endure and win ... from the seabed to cislunar space.”
Space Force, the newest military service, which was created by Trump in 2019, is preparing to fight in space and around the moon because “humanity is advancing deeper into space — the Space Force’s job is to help be prepared to defend U.S. interests,” Lt. Gen. Gregory Gagnon, head of the force’s Combat Forces Command, told reporters separately.
The announcement that the U.S. military is ready to fight in the area between high Earth orbit and the moon itself comes days after Air Force Secretary Troy Meink revealed at the same conference that the U.S. has fielded “on-orbit space control weapons."
The spate of announcements about space weaponry from military officials over recent days flies in the face of long-standing conventions and international understandings that have held outer space as only to be used for peaceful purposes and remain non-militarized.
While multiple nations, including the U.S., have demonstrated the ability to shoot down satellites in Earth orbit, those demonstrations have taken place from the ground against their own satellites.
However, according to Gagnon, “the intelligence community has been clear that potential adversaries have been seeking to extend warfare into space” and that the U.S. military needs to react.
“Our potential adversaries such as the PRC are actively pursuing activities in the system, in parts of space,” Gagnon said, referring to the People's Republic of China, the country's official name.
China established its own military space troops in 2024, charging them with boosting capability to manage space crises.
When asked about the U.S. announcement on deploying weapons in space, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters Tuesday that “China always upholds the peaceful use of outer space, maintains outer space security and opposes the weaponization, militarization and an arms race in outer space.”
Guo also urged the U.S. to “stop expanding its military preparations in outer space.”
It is not clear whether deploying weapons in space or possible plans to use them around the moon will run afoul of international treaties that prevent the militarization of space.
The Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which the U.S. and China have signed, says celestial objects such as the moon are to be used “exclusively for peaceful purposes,” nuclear weapons cannot be placed in space and countries are “liable for damage caused by their space objects.”
There was a renewed push two years ago to further bolster anti-militarization measures in the United Nations following U.S. reports that Russia was developing a space-based weapon.
Russia vetoed a joint U.S.-Japanese resolution that would have called on all countries not to develop or deploy nuclear arms or other weapons of mass destruction in space, as banned under the treaty. A rival Russian resolution to ban all weapons in space “for all time” also ultimately failed.
When asked about the 1967 treaty and other similar obligations, Gagnon said the U.S. Space Force “will continue to execute safe and responsible space operations in all the reaches of space.”
However, he would not say what Space Force or overall U.S. military policy was on the use of weapons like bullets or projectiles in space. He directed questions to the Pentagon, which did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
Gagnon also says the U.S. aims to double the size of the Space Force over the next five years — to roughly 25,000 service members — and that about two-thirds of that growth would be focused on Combat Forces Command.
“We have capabilities in the military because we are preparing to defend the nation," Gagnon said. "The reason we have the capabilities is to help create deterrence.”
FILE - A solider wears a U.S. Space Force uniform during a ceremony for U.S. Air Force airmen transitioning to U.S. Space Force guardian designations at Travis Air Force Base, Calif., Feb. 12, 2021. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)
FILE - Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine testifies at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, July 21, 2026, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, file)
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, left, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth listen during a meeting with Australia's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Richard Marles at the Pentagon, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
On the way home from a recent trip, Eriech Tapia drove past a sea of dark industrial buildings lining an already jam-packed northern Virginia road: data centers.
“It was interesting to see how many were going up,” said Tapia, a 30-year-old Republican from Arlington, Virginia, who works in higher education advocacy and policy. He said the data centers lend valuable computing power that can help keep the U.S. competitive with other nations, but he also worries about how much electricity they use.
Like Tapia, Americans have grown more concerned about the environmental impacts of artificial intelligence over the last year, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago.
The survey data say about half, 53%, of Americans are “extremely” or “very” concerned about artificial intelligence's environmental impacts. That is up from 41% last year. Democrats are driving much of the increase in environmental concern, but the poll also reveals broader worries about the local impact of data centers, which power AI and cloud computing.
“We're undertaking a massive experiment in real time, and I don't think there'll be any putting the milk back in the bottle. Change is scary, and I think some of that is being reflected here,” said Michael Greenstone, who directs the University of Chicago institute that collaborated on the survey.
There are thousands of data centers in the U.S. with construction planned for more. Those include smaller, conventional centers that have been around for decades, as well as larger hyperscale ones that are being built to serve artificial intelligence’s added processing needs. Virginia and Texas have the most facilities currently in operation, and other top contenders include California, Ohio and New York.
While 87% of existing data centers are in urban areas, most new data centers are planned for rural areas, according to a Pew Research Center analysis from earlier this year.
“I think that decisions are being made for the company, not for the community that they're being built in,” said Nancy Antunes, a 60-year-old retired Democrat from Waltham, Massachusetts.
A recent United Nations University report predicted that data centers' environmental footprint, which already rivals some of the world's largest countries, will grow rapidly as AI is more widely adopted.
Democrats are increasingly worried about AI's environmental consequences. About two-thirds of Democrats say they are “extremely” or “very” concerned about how AI will affect the environment, the poll found, up from about half in 2025. By contrast, about half of independents and about 4 in 10 Republicans are highly concerned about the environmental impact of AI.
Overall, Americans are more worried about the environmental impact of AI than other industries with a substantial environmental footprint. Only about 3 in 10 U.S. adults are highly concerned about the impact of meat production or air travel.
Dan Diorio, an executive vice president at the Data Center Coalition, said data centers are committed to operating responsibly and have already supported new jobs and contributed to the U.S. economy.
“The data center industry provides significant, tangible benefits that are currently being felt in localities across the country,” Diorio said in a statement.
While concerns about environmental impacts are higher among Democrats, there is a broad sense of wariness about a rapid data center boom.
About 6 in 10 Americans support limiting the number of new data centers that can be built, including most Democrats and Republicans.
“There’s a lot of water usage by AI data centers that’s taking away from other things like agriculture and farmers and places that really need it, and people who really need it,” said 21-year-old computer science student Gedeon Kebede, a Democrat from Cincinnati, Ohio.
A majority of Americans are “extremely” or “very” concerned about the impact of data centers on electricity prices or the water supply in the communities where they are built.
Data centers' use of water to cool AI chips and computers is “nationally modest but potentially locally decisive,” energy systems engineer Fengqi You with Cornell University said in an email. While data centers aren't the largest water gobblers in the country, a single large campus can still place stress on a smaller municipal area.
The centers are also powered by tremendous amounts of electricity, particularly larger ones, raising concerns about where that energy will come from. Data centers could account for 11.8% of the U.S.' electricity consumption by 2030, according to a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Report.
“We’re talking about building electric infrastructure on a scale of entire cities, or in some cases, entire states just to serve one data center,” said Erik Nordman, director of Michigan State University's Institute of Public Utilities.
About two-thirds of U.S. adults support requiring data centers to use clean energy sources, such as wind or solar, to supply their electricity needs. About 8 in 10 Democrats support this, along with 56% of Republicans.
Still, some Americans say data center worries feel distant. Mary Fisher, 68, hasn't seen any come up in her Jacksonville, Florida, neighborhood.
“You know, it hasn’t come across my desk as something I should be concerned about,” said Fisher, who is retired and identifies as a Republican.
About one-quarter of U.S. adults say data centers are “extremely” or “very” beneficial when it comes to technological advancement, and about 2 in 10 say the same about job creation. Many U.S. adults say data centers are “somewhat” beneficial or aren't sure, while about one-quarter say they're “not very” or “not at all” beneficial for technological advancement, and about a third don't see a benefit for job creation.
“I see a huge increase in the number of temporary construction workers that are coming to areas, which is vitally important to the U.S. economy,” said Tapia, the higher education advocate.
Republicans are more likely than Democrats to see data centers' benefits. But about 3 in 10 Republicans still think the centers are “not very” or “not at all” beneficial for improved infrastructure and job creation.
Kebede, the computer science student, said he feels pressured to use artificial intelligence. Despite his concerns surrounding the technology, he still wants to be a competitive applicant for the jobs of the future.
“I think a lot of people just feel that it's very much a bubble,” he said. “Ultimately, when it pops, it's going to be very detrimental to everyone, whether you bought into the AI hype or not.”
The AP-NORC poll of 3,424 adults was conducted July 6-24, 2026, using a combined sample of interviews from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population, and interviews from opt-in online panels. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 2.2 percentage points. The AmeriSpeak panel is recruited randomly using address-based sampling methods, and respondents later were interviewed online or by phone. To incorporate the nonprobability sample, NORC used TrueNorth calibration, an innovative hybrid calibration approach developed at NORC to explicitly account for potential bias associated with the nonprobability sample.
The Associated Press’ health and science coverage receives financial support from the AP Fund for Journalism and private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
This photo taken with a smartphone shows a sign opposing data centers on the floor of the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City, Mo., Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb)
This photo taken with a smartphone shows opponents of data centers conversing behind a sign while preparing for a rally Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026 at the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City, Mo. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb)
Meta data centers operate, Saturday, Sept. 5, 2026, near Social Circle, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
