Critical Infrastructure Awareness Month: ICIT’s 2026 Vision to Strengthen and Modernize U.S. Critical Infrastructure

November 29, 2025

Author: Val Cofield, Executive Director, ICIT

The Erosion of our CI Backbone: Why Basic Services Are Becoming More Vulnerable

November is Critical Infrastructure Awareness month. It may seem odd to highlight something that when it’s working right, you never pay attention to. Here in America, we often take our critical infrastructure for granted. Our country is privileged in that, for the most part, we have clean drinking water and hot water for showers. We have roads to travel from our homes to work or the grocery store. We can talk to each other through our phones, and we have electricity to light and heat our homes. As of late, however, these seamless services are fraying, and they have garnered the attention of everyday Americans, our politicians, and even our adversaries.

Energy Affordability as a Political Flashpoint

During the most recent elections, the governors’ elect in both New Jersey and Virginia talked about the rising cost of electricity, and the need to control and reduce these costs.  Both of these governors’ races were won by much larger margins than expected. Their rhetoric on the campaign trail is being echoed by industry analysts who are forecasting a rise in electricity costs this winter while at same time the average overdue electricity bill has already risen 32% since 2022.

PRC Positioning Inside Critical U.S. Systems

Added to these challenges, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have moved from espionage to pre-positioning themselves for disruptive and destructive attacks on US critical infrastructure in our telecommunications, water, electricity, and transportation systems. There was a recent 60 Minutes story about Littleton, Massachusetts, a town of only about 10,000 residents, where Chinese state sponsored actors pre-positioned themselves into their water utility. Small towns are not the only target: Major telecom providers, Houston’s port, New York City’s transit network, and the nation’s gas pipeline operators have all been infiltrated.

ICIT’s Framework for Strengthening National Resilience

As the first Executive Director of the Institute of Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT), I am privileged to help shine a spotlight on critical infrastructure and work with industry which owns and operates over 85% of critical infrastructure in the United States, together with government and civil society to modernize, secure, and make resilient the infrastructure that provides for people’s foundational needs.

ICIT organizes its focus area on critical infrastructure into three interdependent pillars that incorporate four of the sixteen critical infrastructure sectors: Energy & Grid, Water & Wastewater, and Transportation & Telecommunications. In 2026, we will be examining these pillars through the lens of topics like Defense Critical Infrastructure, Cyber Force, Drones, Federal Civilian Executive Branch, and Data Centers & Artificial Intelligence.

Taiwan, Deterrence, and Domestic Resilience

As China considers reunification with Taiwan a strategic priority by 2027, the US needs to be prepared for what that could mean for our country and our allies.  As a nation, we need to ensure that we are ready to defend the homeland should conflict become inevitable. We must ensure the resilience of the critical infrastructure that supports our military at home, while acknowledging that much of the infrastructure powering domestic military bases is owned and operated by industry and by state and local governments.  To ensure the resilience of these military bases, ICIT believes that strong coalitions need to be forged between industry, government, the military, and civil society and as such, we will be exploring ways to shore up these defenses with finite resources and skills.

Aligning Cyber Capabilities with Infrastructure Security Needs

We know that China has pre-positioned itself into our country’s critical infrastructure, so one important aspect of making our defense critical infrastructure more secure and resilient is bolstering the cybersecurity of this infrastructure. ICIT will be looking at how to do this effectively, and if this Administration decides to create a new military branch for cyber, what role would this new military branch have in respect to Defense Critical Infrastructure (DCI), if any.

Scaling America’s Drone Innovation Base

If tensions escalate between China and Taiwan, drones will certainly play a part in the plans on both sides, as we’ve seen how drones have played a significant role in the Russia Ukraine conflict. ICIT will be exploring what spill over implications that has for the US and its allies.  Regardless of this possible conflict, the Russia Ukraine war has dramatically increased drone innovations that have a range of uses not just for the military.  ICIT will also be looking at how to help the US foster its drone innovation base and scale production as needed, as well as look at different policies that might need to be implemented to ensure this industry’s safety and continued growth.

FCEB as a Target: Cyber Pressure in Geopolitical Crises

Fifteen of the sixteen critical infrastructure sectors are managed by the Federal Civilian Executive Branch. As cited in a 2023 Center for Strategic and International Studies report: “There is an increasing chance that a major geopolitical crisis will become a form of digital hostage-taking, with authoritarian states seeking to disrupt FCEB agencies as a way of signaling the risks of escalation to U.S. politicians and the public.”  We know that China is undeterred to use cyber as a means to not only disrupt critical infrastructure but also to gain access to FCEB agency information. That’s why ICIT launched its FCEB initiative in 2023, and it continues its efforts to bolster and secure FCEB agencies. 

Data Centers and AI as National Security Assets

Lastly, as our nation strives to maintain its leadership in Artificial Intelligence, the development of data centers has become a strategic imperative. Morgan Stanley estimates that companies will be spending $3 trillion on artificial intelligence infrastructure through 2028. I believe that data centers are national security assets and have to be protected as such. ICIT will be exploring ways to help secure and protect this infrastructure, as well as looking at ways to mitigate the impact these data centers have on the communities that host them.

From Awareness to Implementation: ICIT in 2026

As 2025 comes to an end, ICIT looks forward to 2026 as an opportunity to work with industry, Congress, federal, state, and local governments, as well as civil society, to modernize and secure critical infrastructure through carefully identified and selected initiatives on DCI, Drones, Federal Civilian Executive Branch, Data Centers & Artificial Intelligence, and the Cyber Force. America’s adversaries are preparing for the future by pre-positioning themselves into our critical systems, systems that are not nearly ready to withstand it. ICIT’s mission is to change that.

About Val Cofield

Val Cofield is the Executive Director for ICIT. Prior to joining ICIT, Ms. Cofield served as the Chief Strategy Officer of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). In that role she was the principal policy and strategic adviser to CISA leadership and senior management, integrating strategy across all the organization’s mission areas and ensuring policy, strategy, and operational consistency throughout the agency.

About ICIT

The Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, 501(c)3think tank with the mission of modernizing, securing, and making resilient critical infrastructure that provides for people’s foundational needs. ICIT takes no institutional positions on policy matters. Rather than advocate, ICIT is dedicated to being a resource for the organizations and communities that share our mission. By applying a people-centric lens to critical infrastructure research and decision making, our work ensures that modernization and security investments have a lasting, positive impact on society. Learn more at www.icitech.org.

ICIT CONTACTS:

Parham Eftekhari

Founder and Chairman

parham@icitech.org 

Cory Simpson

Chief Executive Officer

cory@icitech.org