China Moves to Exploit America’s Data Center Backlash

Americans have real reasons to be concerned about the explosion of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers across the country. Massive facilities can strain electrical grids, consume significant quantities of water, alter local landscapes, and potentially affect utility bills.

But there is growing evidence that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has recognized those legitimate concerns as an opportunity – and is attempting to exploit them to slow America’s AI buildout.

To be clear, no evidence as of now suggests that Beijing created America’s anti-data-center movement or that ordinary citizens raising questions about new projects are agents of the CCP. In fact, a recent Gallup poll found that 71 percent of Americans somewhat or strongly oppose construction of data centers in their communities.

As a recent Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI) report put it, “American citizens have legitimate concerns about water use, energy costs, and grid capacity, concerns that deserve serious local deliberation.” But, the report continued, “local deliberation works only when the public can see who is bankrolling and influencing the campaigns shaping the debate.”

That is where the national security concerns begin.

In June, OpenAI revealed that it had shut down a cluster of accounts likely operated from China that were using ChatGPT to produce anti-data-center material. According to NPR, the accounts appeared connected to a private Chinese technology company working for “provincial-level government clients.” Operators posed as Americans and generated social media posts emphasizing soaring electricity costs and the energy demands of AI facilities.

OpenAI found that the effort gained little traction. But Ben Nimmo, the company’s head of threat investigations, made the larger point clear.

“This was not a case of an influence operation creating a debate. The debate existed already,” he said. “This was an influence operation from China trying to interfere in it.”

The BPI report argues that the OpenAI operation is part of a much broader ecosystem of foreign influence surrounding the American AI debate, specifically identifying three major avenues: Chinese and Russian state media, a network of U.S. nonprofits linked to Shanghai-based American businessman Neville Roy Singham, and billions of dollars in foreign charitable funding flowing into American advocacy organizations involved in anti-data-center campaigns.

Some of the most compelling evidence involves Beijing’s own propaganda organs.

China Global Television Network blamed “energy-hungry data centers” for higher American electricity prices. Meanwhile, China Daily warned that the AI boom was creating “a new source of economic strain” for U.S. consumers. Global Times, another CCP-controlled outlet, has likewise portrayed America’s data-center expansion as troubled and unsustainable.

Yet Beijing is pursuing precisely the opposite policy at home.

BPI notes that while Chinese state media warns Americans about the economic and environmental dangers of data centers, the Chinese government has subsidized as much as half the energy costs of some of its own domestic AI data-center operators. Beijing has made dominating AI an explicit national objective, with Xi Jinping calling AI an “important strategic handhold” for gaining the initiative in global technological competition.

“The asymmetry is what gives the operation away,” the report argues.

The report also highlights an April event on Capitol Hill hosted by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on the “existential threat of AI.” Two of the four featured panelists had significant Chinese government affiliations.

Xue Lan, a Tsinghua University professor, chairs China’s national AI governance expert committee and serves as a counselor to the Chinese State Council. Zeng Yi, dean of the Beijing Institute of AI Safety and Governance, has repeatedly appeared in Chinese state media promoting Beijing’s views on global AI governance.

The presence of such figures does not prove that Sanders or American data-center critics are working with Beijing. But to Chinese dissidents and former officials, the pattern is deeply troubling.

According to one former CCP official who managed overseas operations during the 1990s, “the party entrusted them with the mission to slow down, disrupt or halt technological progress in the U.S.”

BPI also traces years of anti-AI and anti-export-control messaging through organizations funded by Singham, a U.S. expatriate living in Shanghai whose network has been the subject of multiple congressional investigations over alleged ties to Beijing.

While BPI acknowledges that it has not proven central coordination among every group involved, the evidence is alarming nonetheless. “Whether the streams formally coordinate is a question for FARA enforcement, the IRS, and the intelligence community,” the report reads. What is documented, however, is “the convergence on a single policy outcome.”

That distinction has not stopped Congress from taking the matter seriously.

House Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie and other Republican lawmakers asked the Trump administration in June to investigate whether foreign adversaries are attempting to slow U.S. AI development by inflaming opposition to the infrastructure needed to support it.

“The fact that Chinese Communist Party-backed entities and other foreign adversaries may be attempting to influence decisions related to American data center infrastructure puts into perspective how serious of a fight we are in,” Guthrie said.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton went even further, formally asking the Justice Department to investigate foreign influence efforts targeting America’s AI infrastructure.

Cotton, too, stressed that legitimate local concerns should not be dismissed.

“Americans certainly have valid concerns about potential rising energy costs and strains on natural resources related to data centers,” he wrote. But he warned that America “can’t allow any effort by foreign adversaries to extort these fears and undermine our technological development.”

The stakes extend far beyond electricity bills.

“Maintaining America’s AI advantage is vital to American economic strength, diplomacy, national security, and military power,” Cotton wrote.

Former Chinese officials see parallels to Cold War influence operations, when communist governments sought to exploit authentic Western protest movements that happened to advance Moscow or Beijing’s strategic interests.

“Targeting the heart of the system and creating a contentious atmosphere in the U.S. benefits them,” said retired Lt. Col. Quán Chāngpǔ, a former Chinese officer who defected to the West in the early 1990s.

“PLA fingerprints are everywhere,” he added.

Americans should continue debating the costs and benefits of data centers, and communities should demand protections when projects threaten local resources or impose unfair costs.

But Beijing understands that AI supremacy could define the economic and military balance of the coming decades. Americans should therefore also understand how a legitimate grievance can become a weapon in the hands of an adversary. Domestic political debates should be influenced only by the citizens who live here, not malign foreign actors looking to undermine the U.S. national interest.

Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.