Compute deterrence

Threats to sabotage a rival’s datacentres if it races ahead (MAIM, or “mutually assured compute destruction”).

Facts

Lane: Security and geopolitics
Wave: 8 of 12 (build order, not a date)
Needs: 18 boxes all the way back through hard links
Unlocks: 0 boxes downstream through hard links
Leverage: None
Cluster: Compute governance and geopolitics

Evidence as of October 2026

AI 2040 uses mutually assured compute destruction as the enforcement backstop for a deal. MIRI judges MAIM “unlikely to provide an effective or stable deterrence regime”.

01AI 2040
02MIRI: Refining MAIM

Around it

Needs · 3

Strategic AI competitionstage · Emerging
AI-run cyber operationscapability · Emerging
Chip tracking and location verificationcapability · Emerging

Unlocks · 1

Verified slowdownstage · Speculative · helps, not required

Loops and off-ramps

Capex pullbackoff-ramp · cut off
Taiwan chip disruptionoff-ramp · cut off
Power shortfalloff-ramp · cut off
Capability plateauoff-ramp · cut off
Training data ruled outoff-ramp · slowed

Openings researchers' judgement, October 2026 scouting

Startup room 44/100 · rank 48 of 124 Research room 52/100 · rank 58 of 124

Crowding2 Lab overlap2 Small-team fit4 Buyer today1.5 Research openness4

Depth: light
Players: Hendrycks, Schmidt and Wang (MAIM); MIRI TGT; AI Frontiers critics
Wedge: Analysis and wargaming of observability and attribution of AI progress for stable red lines. research

01arXiv 2503.05628: Superintelligence Strategy