NEW YORK (Reuters) -The United States must expedite its development of fusion energy or risk falling behind China on energy dominance, said Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin at the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston on Tuesday.

Virginia is home to the world's biggest hub of energy-hungry data centers, with about 70% of the world's internet traffic routing through the state.

"We've got to drive hard to accelerate fusion, otherwise China will," Youngkin said during a panel discussion at the conference alongside Virginia utility Dominion Energy CEO Robert Blue and Bob Mumgaard, chief of Commonwealth Fusion Systems.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems announced in December that it planned the first utility-scale fusion power plant, which it would build in Virginia.

Fusion is the reaction that fuels the sun and which scientists are trying to replicate on Earth with lasers or magnets.

(Reporting by Laila Kearney and Tim Gardner; Editing by Tom Hogue and Muralikumar Anantharaman)