Experts Doubt China Is Driving US Data Center
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- OpenAI released a report identifying Chinese-origin accounts spreading anti-data-center messages on social media, but noted it "found no evidence of meaningful breakout" of the messaging from flagged accounts.
- Senator Tom Cotton sent a letter to acting AG Todd Blanche seeking an investigation into alleged Chinese Communist Party influence on data center opposition, while House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans sent a parallel letter to the White House and FBI last week.
- Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Fox Business last month that communities trying to build data centers are "getting bombarded" with foreign propaganda.
- Graphika analyst Dina Sadek said the company has "not yet seen evidence of organized or scaled influence operations" traceable to a foreign actor, concluding that "domestic US actors are leading the online anti-data-center conversation."
- The Bitcoin Policy Institute report — authored by head of research Sam Lyman and cited by House Republicans and developer Kevin O'Leary — alleges nonprofit funding ties between anti-data-center efforts and Chinese Communist Party-linked funders.
- Polling from Heatmap shows more than half of Americans support a moratorium on data center development, and Public First polling ranked US support for data centers lowest among 15 countries surveyed.
- Brookings fellow Kyle Chan and Stanford's Graham Webster challenged the report's framing, noting that prominent Chinese AI experts routinely participate in international policy discussions and that Chinese state media commonly republishes US news storylines.
Why it matters: The framing matters because Cotton's request for an AG investigation and House Republicans' parallel letter put federal investigative weight behind a claim that experts say isn't supported by current evidence — potentially misdirecting policy responses from the local energy and land-use concerns that a majority of Americans actually cite, per Heatmap polling.
