ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Saurabh Ullal is president of 6K Energy, an American manufacturer of advanced cathode materials with facilities in Massachusetts and Tennessee. Paul Lichty is co-founder and CEO of Forge Nano, a U.S.-based advance manufacturing company building domestic lithium-ion batteries in North Carolina.

The drones monitoring hostile territory depend on lithium-ion batteries. So do the communications systems connecting soldiers to their commanders, the guidance electronics directing precision munitions, and the unmanned systems that have become essential to modern warfare. The Pentagon is racing to field thousands of autonomous weapons systems to counter China’s numerical advantage in the Pacific. Every single one requires batteries to function.

Today, the Pentagon relies on Chinese supply chains for thousands of battery components in its weapons programs.

Beijing controls between 85% and 90% of global cathode production and over 97% of anode manufacturing, the two components that enable a battery’s energy storage and discharge. Chinese firms refine 70% of the world’s lithium, 73% of cobalt, and process virtually all battery-grade graphite. Two companies answerable to the Chinese Communist Party, CATL and BYD, produce nearly half the world’s battery cells. When the Pentagon blacklisted CATL last January, it acknowledged what this concentration means: We cannot power weapons systems with components sourced from an adversary.

The FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act set a January 2028 deadline to functional cell components from designated foreign entities of concern. That means the U.S. has roughly two years remaining to build the domestic production that our defense and national security require. Without dramatically expanded and vertically integrated domestic capacity, critical weapons programs will stall.

The law creates an opening for something far more strategic than emergency sourcing from allied nations. It demands what America should have maintained all along: a complete, vertically integrated domestic battery supply chain from mineral processing through cell assembly.

A handful of U.S. companies are working to stand up battery cell manufacturing efforts to produce battery products locally. While a much-needed step in addressing the future needs of U.S. defense, most efforts currently lack a domestic material supply chain, rendering their product incompatible with recent supply chain standardization. Stacking imported cathodes, anodes, electrolytes and separators into finished cells will only keep America dependent on the same chokepoints China controls. True supply chain security requires domestic production of every critical component.

We represent different stages of the battery supply chain, but we face the same challenge. Chinese cathode manufacturers supply materials to Chinese cell makers at costs American companies cannot match. They benefit from vertical integration subsidized by Beijing — cathode plants feeding cell factories in coordinated industrial parks with state-backed financing. American cell manufacturers require domestically produced battery-grade materials with competitive costs to serve the U.S. customer base. True supply chain security requires replicating that vertical integration on American soil.

American companies possess the technology to build this complete supply chain. Advanced manufacturing processes developed at institutions like MIT can produce cathode materials with 42% to 65% lower emissions than Chinese equivalents while meeting defense-grade performance standards. American cell manufacturers have proven they can outcompete on cell performance and durability to produce cell products to operate in the extreme conditions required by the Pentagon. The missing piece is sustained federal investment to put the U.S. battery industry on the same playing field as the Chinese.

The economics work when defense procurement provides anchor demand. A cathode facility producing 1,000 tons annually can supply batteries for thousands of military platforms. A cell manufacturing plant with a U.S. material supply chain can serve defense applications while economies of scale and commercial expansion allow for future capacity to additional homegrown innovations. Defense needs provide the foundation, commercial scale follows, and American supply chains strengthen with each additional facility that comes online.

China spent three decades building its battery monopoly through state-directed investments, securing access to mineral resources globally while constructing the processing infrastructure to convert raw materials into finished cells. Chinese companies competed not on superior technology but on subsidized capital and regulatory standards that prioritize production volume over environmental protection.

The United States can build better batteries more cleanly than China. American manufacturers produce cathodes that generate half the emissions while cell makers meet stricter performance and safety requirements. The challenge is not technical capability but financial commitment to industrial scale.

Every month closer to January 2028 increases the risk that critical weapons programs will face battery shortages. The alternative is federal investment scaled to the threat: loans and grants to accelerate construction of cathode, anode and cell production facilities on timelines measured in quarters rather than years.

This investment carries returns beyond military readiness. Domestic battery production creates manufacturing jobs in communities that have watched industrial capacity migrate overseas for decades. It positions American companies to compete in global markets rather than ceding those sectors to Chinese firms.

China views our dependency as leverage to be exercised when geopolitical tensions escalate. We should view it as a strategic failure to be corrected before the next crisis makes correction impossible. Building a domestic battery supply chain is not industrial policy for its own sake. It is a national security infrastructure as essential as shipyards and ammunition plants.

The 2028 deadline is not the finish line. It is the starting gun for building the battery industrial base America needs to maintain military readiness and economic competitiveness. Federal funding now determines whether American forces operate with secure supply chains or remain dependent on Beijing’s goodwill for the batteries that power our defense.