Imagine a company quietly gathering more personal information about you than any social network ever has—except this time it’s not your photos or likes. It’s your actual genetic code. Your ancestry, your health risks, even the blueprint that makes you, you. Now imagine that company has deep ties to a foreign government with a track record of turning commercial tech into strategic weapons.
That’s not science fiction. That’s happening right now, and some of the sharpest minds in Washington are sounding the alarm louder than they ever did about Huawei.
The Genomics Giant Quietly Outpacing Huawei
A decade ago almost nobody outside telecom circles had heard of Huawei. Then, almost overnight, it became the poster child for how fast China can dominate a critical technology—and how dangerous that can be when national security is on the line.
Fast-forward to today and a senior U.S. lawmaker is warning that the next Huawei won’t be about 5G towers or smartphones. It will be about DNA.
Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee and a former tech entrepreneur himself, didn’t mince words this week. He said one Chinese genomics powerhouse is on a trajectory to become bigger—and frankly more frightening—than Huawei ever was.
“If Huawei was big, BGI will be even bigger.”
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA)
From Beijing Lab to Global DNA Powerhouse
BGI started life as a research institute tied to China’s national genome project. Over the last two decades it transformed into a commercial behemoth that operates sequencing labs on multiple continents, supplies prenatal tests in dozens of countries, and has helped build national genetic databases from the Middle East to Europe to Latin America.
They’re incredibly good at what they do—and incredibly cheap. Sound familiar?
In country after country, hospitals and researchers choose BGI equipment and services because the price is right and the technology is world-class. The result? An ever-growing river of genetic data flowing back to servers that ultimately answer to Beijing.
Why DNA Is the New Oil (Actually, It’s More Valuable)
Oil powers machines. Genetic data, when you pair it with massive computing power and artificial intelligence, can literally reshape human beings.
- It reveals ethnic origins (great for surveillance in restive regions)
- It predicts disease risk (useful for insurance—or denying it)
- It exposes family connections across generations
- It can guide the creation of tailored bioweapons
- And yes, in theory, it can help engineer soldiers who don’t need sleep, heal faster, or resist chemical agents
In the wrong hands, a giant genetic database becomes a strategic weapon more powerful than any aircraft carrier.
The “Super Soldier” Scenario Nobody Wants to Say Out Loud
Washington has been unusually blunt. Officials have repeatedly claimed China is exploring human performance enhancement on a level that would make Captain America blush.
Think about it: a military that can screen recruits at birth for genetic potential, edit embryos for strength and intelligence, or develop countermeasures to any biological threat before it’s even deployed. That’s not a James Bond villain plot—that’s the logical endpoint of controlling the world’s largest trove of diverse genetic data.
“It’s terrifying.”
Sen. Mark Warner describing the implications
We’ve Seen This Playbook Before
The Huawei saga offers an almost perfect template:
- Heavy state backing → rock-bottom prices
- Rapid global market share gains
- Western governments wake up only after critical infrastructure is already in place
- Belated sanctions that hurt but don’t fully reverse the damage
Only this time the infrastructure isn’t routers and cell towers. It’s inside our bodies.
By the time the U.S. blacklisted Huawei in 2019, much of the world’s 5G backbone already carried the company’s fingerprints. Lawmakers are determined not to make the same mistake twice.
Washington’s Response So Far (and Why It’s Not Enough)
Congress has been trying—fitfully—to pass versions of the BIOSECURE Act that would bar certain Chinese biotech firms from doing business with U.S. entities that receive federal funds. Some American hospitals and research institutions have already cut ties under pressure.
But progress is slow, and the companies argue they’re purely commercial players following local laws. Meanwhile the data keeps flowing.
Perhaps more worrying: U.S. intelligence only seriously ramped up coverage of commercial biotech in the last couple of years. As Warner pointedly noted, agencies historically focused on foreign militaries and governments, not boardrooms and sequencing labs.
The Intelligence Blind Spot That Keeps Repeating
Remember when China’s top chipmaker suddenly produced an advanced 7nm (later 6nm) chip despite sweeping U.S. export controls? Washington was genuinely shocked. That moment exposed how badly we’d underestimated both capability and work-arounds.
The same underestimation is happening in biotech right now. In my view, we’re still fighting the last war while China races ahead in the next one.
Allies Are Hesitating—and That’s a Huge Problem
Tracking this kind of threat demands tight intelligence sharing with partners. Yet some of America’s closest allies—members of the Five Eyes and beyond—have grown wary.
Senior officials in the UK, Netherlands, and France have publicly questioned whether U.S. intelligence is being politicized. When trust erodes, allies hold back their best material. That’s a luxury we can’t afford when the stakes are genetic.
The Standards Game China Is Winning
One of the least understood advantages America held for decades was setting global technical standards. From GSM to Wi-Fi to GPS, when the U.S. wrote the rules, American companies (and values) rode the wave.
China learned that lesson well. Today it floods international standards bodies with engineers and proposals. In genomics, AI, quantum—across the board—Beijing is positioning itself as the new rule-maker.
If we disengage, we don’t just lose market share. We lose the ability to embed privacy protections, ethical constraints, or simple transparency into the foundational technologies of the future.
What Happens Next?
Honestly? It could go either way.
Scenario one: Congress gets its act together, allies recommit, and the U.S. mounts a coordinated response that contains the risk without killing legitimate scientific collaboration.
Scenario two: We repeat the Huawei cycle—debate, delay, half-measures—until one day we wake up and realize a single authoritarian state has the most comprehensive genetic map of humanity ever assembled.
I know which future keeps intelligence officials up at night.
The irony, of course, is that the same technology could cure cancer, end hereditary disease, and extend healthy lifespans for billions. The difference between utopia and dystopia isn’t the science—it’s who controls it and what values they bring to the table.
Ten years from now we’ll either look back and thank the people who sounded the alarm early, or we’ll wonder how we let the next strategic technology slip through our fingers again.
Right now the choice is still ours. But the clock is ticking louder than most people realize.
