In the era of AI, what is the most valuable resource? When I think about it, the first things that come to mind are “GPUs” and “data.”
At the same time, the idea that these are important resources has already become common sense. The real question is what kind of resources they are.
During the Industrial Revolution, oil was the resource that moved nations. It supported industrial production, transportation, and even determined the outcomes of wars. It was said that whoever controlled oil controlled the world.
Today, GPUs are beginning to resemble oil. They drive generative AI, support military technologies, and stand at the frontlines of information warfare. Whether or not a nation possesses computational resources now determines its strategic strength.
I wrote about this perspective in “The Geopolitics of Computational and Energy Resources.”
However, the emergence of ChatGPT, and later DeepSeek, has made things a little more complicated. Having massive amounts of GPUs and data is no longer an absolute prerequisite. With the right model design and training strategy, it has been proven that even limited computational resources can produce disruptive results.
In other words, GPUs, once similar to oil, are now also beginning to resemble “currency.”
It’s not just about how much you have. It’s about where, when, and how you use it. Liquidity and strategic deployment determine outcomes. Mere accumulation is meaningless. Value is created by circulation and optimized utilization.
Given this, I believe the coming resource wars will have a two-layer structure.
One layer will resemble the traditional oil wars. Nations will hoard GPUs, dominate supply chains, and treat computational resources like hard currency.
The other layer will be more flexible and dynamic, akin to currency wars. Teams will compete on model design, data engineering, and chip architecture optimization—on how much performance they can extract from limited resources.
DeepSeek exemplified the second path. In an environment without access to cutting-edge GPUs, they optimized software and human resources to extract performance that rivals the world’s top models.
In short, simply possessing computational resources will no longer be enough. It will be essential to customize, optimize, and maximize the efficiency of what you have.
It’s not about “who has the most.” It’s about “who can use it best.”
I believe this is the structure of the new resource war in the AI era.