In December 2025, representatives of the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia and Israel signed the Pax Silica declaration, a strategic initiative to secure the global supply chains for advanced information and communication technologies and, in particular, artificial intelligence. Like other prongs of the wide US push for imperialist expansion, Pax Silica has China in its crosshairs and represents an effort to counter Chinese progress in these areas. To put these aggressive US efforts in context, it is useful to look at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s (ASPI) Critical Technology Tracker, traditionally used to monitor international trends in emerging critical technologies: China leads in 66 of the 74 technologies tracked.
The Pax Silica initiative quickly gathered more signatories: first came the Gulf states, then India, and after individual European countries joined the coalition, the European Union signed the pact as well. What are its first practical effects?
The cost of the US’s technological appetite is paid in environmental destruction, death and destruction, and loss of sovereignty for peoples worldwide. The technology at the focus of this strategic supply-chain fortification is the backbone of the US military and security apparatus. Waging wars of aggression across multiple continents, interfering in the operations of states and seeking new sites of resource and capital extraction, the US puts its technology into a pipeline for immediate deadly use. Militarisation, as the immediate experience of EU states and Ireland itself shows us, is also a powerful budget drain, affecting the lives of millions for the profit of the very few.
As you read this article, Pax Silica is entering its first concrete development: a massive industrial facility in the Philippines, with enormous environmental impact and complete disregard for Philippine sovereignty, local communities and their safety, well-being and prosperity.
On 20 September, grassroots organisations across the United States launched the Shut Down Pax Silica Campaign Network. “Data centers wouldn’t exist without minerals, and without the production of technology that can be used in many ways. Without minerals, there won’t be any microchips, batteries, sensors, or any weapons used in the current military war machine of the Pentagon. It’s the same technology being used to bomb Iran, Palestine, and to wage war in so many places,” said Alab Mirasol Ayroso, a member of the National Secretariat of AGHAM, a Philippine-based organisation advocating for science and technology for the people.
The Network describes the Philippines as Pax Silica’s “Ground Zero” or testing ground for the further expansion and consolidation of the initiative globally. The Philippines is the only country that has agreed to provide land and resources to the US. Dr Giovanni Tapang, convenor of the Philippines-based Network to Oppose Pax Silica, stated that “Our land, energy, water, and future are being given away: 4,000 acres of farmland; 65-90 million litres of water per day demanded against a dry season that will rob the farmers of water; 3 gigawatts of power, 1/5 of the nation’s generation reserved for foreign fabrication and data centres. Pax Silica is for U.S. control of the supply chain and not for the industrialization for the Philippines.”
Dr Tapang called on participants in the campaign to “take this fight into the heart of the empire, organise in every workplace and help us bury Pax Silica where it was born.”
While the shape imperialist forces take in descending on the Philippines under Pax Silica may differ from their manifestation in Ireland’s FDI-crazed data centre blitz, it is hard to miss the similarities and the common role these technological fortresses play on our islands. On Saturday 7 November, the Stop Dirty Data Centres campaign (https://stopdirtydatacentres.eu/) is holding its Europe-wide day of action, a display of popular resistance to the deployment of data centres and the capture of our natural resources by the technological arm of imperialism. Show up in Dublin at the Garden of Remembrance at 12pm and connect the struggles.
