IC Oversight & Policy — 2026-07-26

House Homeland and China Select Committees Stage AI Cyber War Game Simulating PRC Attack on US Critical Infrastructure

BLUFBy war-gaming AI-enabled PRC infrastructure attacks tied to a 2027 Taiwan contingency, House committees have moved from threat awareness to building the political foundation for preemptive legislation.

Members of the House Homeland Security Committee and the House Select Committee on China conducted a closed-door, Member-level war game this week examining AI-enabled cyber threats to U.S. critical infrastructure 1. The Center for Strategic and International Studies hosted the tabletop exercise, in which a CSIS-developed AI agent trained on public U.S. and PRC cyber strategy simulated coordinated attacks on ports, freight rail, airports and transportation networks tied to a scenario of Chinese military exercises around Taiwan in 2027 23. Participating members included Republican Reps. Michael McCaul, Eli Crane and Michael Guest and Democratic Rep. Shri Thanedar, along with Puerto Rico Resident Commissioner Pablo José Hernández 3. McCaul said the committee has been briefed on Anthropic's Mythos model and told reporters China is three to five months behind the U.S. in AI development 13.

Analysis
House Homeland and China Select leadership now treat AI-augmented targeting of ports, rail and transportation as an operational planning problem tied to a possible 2027 Taiwan contingency rather than a hypothetical. McCaul's claim that Beijing trails Mythos-level capability by three to five months supplies political rationale for accelerating the joint PRC-AI investigation and any distillation or chip-control legislation. The scenario's pre-positioned-access framing echoes longstanding Volt Typhoon concerns and pressures DHS and the Pentagon to formalize AI-agent simulation in defense planning rather than treat it as one-off theater; the event may instead function primarily as an advocacy vehicle for AI-defense funding rather than a genuine readiness assessment. Sourcing funnels through a single committee-and-CSIS-distributed readout reproduced verbatim across outlets, bounding confidence to the sponsoring committee's own framing, and whether private infrastructure operators gain new coordination authority remains unresolved.

4 sources

House Homeland, China Select Members Participate in War Game Exercise on AI-Enabled Cyber Threats - House Homeland Security Committee
Opening Remarks: Congressional Wargame on AI-Enabled Cyber Threats to U.S. Critical Infrastructure - Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Lawmakers get taste of AI-enabled cyberattacks in China-Taiwan war game - Nextgov/FCW
Lawmakers simulate AI-backed cyberattack - SC Media