GOP embraces speculation about China’s role in data center backlash

Technology GOP embraces speculation about China’s role in data center backlash Comments: by Julia Shapero and Miranda Nazzaro - 06/22/26 6:00 AM ET Comments: Link copied by Julia Shapero and Miranda Nazzaro - 06/22/26 6:00 AM ET Comments: Link copied

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Republicans are embracing allegations that data center opposition in the U.S. is being fueled by foreign actors, raising questions over how influence operators are contributing to one of the fiercest debates in the tech policy space.

Reports, including from OpenAI, recently emerged suggesting China and other countries are carrying out influence campaigns to fan the flames of Americans’ frustration with the data center buildout.

Data centers — the server warehouses powering the AI boom — once enjoyed support from politicians on both sides of the aisle. But public opinion has rapidly deteriorated in the face of concerns about the infrastructure’s impact on electricity bills and the environment.

Democrats have seized on this backlash, especially around energy costs, while Republicans have struggled to coalesce around a message addressing voters’ worries ahead of the midterms.

“It makes sense for Republicans to point out China’s genuine efforts to influence American politics,” Ryan Fedasiuk, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told The Hill. “I’m glad we’re doing so. But on some level, it’s cope … it’s not going to make the problem go away.”

President Trump largely supports industry development, arguing tech companies need to be able to build without obstacles to effectively compete with China in the so-called AI race. He has sought to speed up the approval of data center projects, curtailing environmental reviews and pushing for faster grid connections.

But the White House is also grasping the reality of data centers’ increasing unpopularity. Earlier this year, Trump secured commitments from leading AI firms to cover rising electricity costs from data centers.

As the president and his fellow Republicans try to balance a pro-tech agenda with constituents’ concerns, at least one key administration official and several GOP lawmakers are latching onto the reports of foreign influence campaigns.

“Any place that’s trying to build data centers is getting bombarded with foreign-directed propaganda to try to block these from being built,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Fox Business Network late last month.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) along with GOP Reps. John Joyce (Pa.) and Bob Latta (Ohio) sent a letter in early June to the FBI and the co-chairs of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, requesting information about evidence that “strongly suggests” foreign influence campaigns.

“The fact that Chinese Communist Party-backed entities and other foreign adversaries may be attempting to influence decisions” about U.S. data centers, “puts into perspective how serious of a fight we are in,” the lawmakers wrote.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a longtime China hawk, similarly wrote to the Justice Department earlier this month asking for an investigation into foreign influence efforts targeting the data center buildout.

Cotton acknowledged Americans have “valid concerns” about data centers but argued that “we can’t allow any effort by foreign adversaries to extort these fears and undermine our technological development.”

Both Guthrie and Cotton pointed to a report from the Bitcoin Policy Institute, which accused Chinese state-run outlets of running anti-data center campaigns. It also highlighted foreign donations to U.S.-based nonprofits that are largely focused on climate issues and sometimes weigh in on the data center debate.

OpenAI separately released an intelligence report revealing influence operators, likely based in China, used ChatGPT accounts to push certain narratives about American AI and technology policy.

China has a long history of influence operations in the U.S., often taking advantage of already divisive issues, including elections.

The AI firm said it discovered two clusters of ChatGPT accounts, one of which generated social media comments and pictures saying data center buildouts increased electricity prices for families in the U.S.

“The operation sought to exploit and amplify existing public concerns about energy prices and local impacts of data center development,” OpenAI wrote.

When reached for comment on the ChatGPT creator’s findings, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said they were not familiar with the specific allegations but “firmly oppose any groundless attacks or smears against China.”

OpenAI emphasized the clusters were a “category one” — meaning most generated posts had “little or no observable engagement.”

Their activity, OpenAI said, “is significant not because the operation appears to have shifted public opinion, but because it shows PRC-origin influence operators testing narratives against AI infrastructure.”

Ari Ben Am, an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation, told The Hill that “beyond a shadow of a doubt, this specific operation did not move the proverbial needle.”

The operation helps lawmakers “blame the anti-data center discourse on China instead of tackling it as an issue and answering it accurately,” Ben Am said, adding that American politicians are “not doing a great job” concerning data centers.

Nonetheless, some are still accusing China of driving the anti-data center narrative.

Katie Miller, the wife of top White House aide Stephen Miller, wrote in a social media post last week that the anti-data center push is not “organic” but “fueled” by Chinese and Russian actors.

China’s efforts come as the U.S. and Beijing race to develop advanced AI, with administration officials warning it is crucial to America’s national security and economic standing.

“The concerns are well placed and well justified,” Fedasiuk said. “Just as the United States is trying to stymie China’s ability to make computational power, China is trying to stymie America’s ability to deploy the computational power we do make.”

“It makes sense for China to try to do this, and it isn’t something that the United States should take lightly or tolerate,” he continued. “It is a serious threat to U.S. security.”

However, Fedasiuk cautioned that blaming China “is not going to be a winning political message.”

Millionaire investor Kevin O’Leary, who is backing a $100 billion data center in Utah, said last month foreign interference associated with the Chinese government is partly to blame for the data center backlash.

O’Leary said his team saw a drastic increase in social media messages about the project, and when they tracked these, some had the same IP addresses and traits of bot activity.

“This is the CCP at work here,” he wrote on social media.

Still, he continued to face backlash and eventually announced he would scale back the 40,000-acre campus.

“It’s a self-soothing narrative to try to blame China for AI’s unpopularity, but it doesn’t change the political facts on the ground,” Fedasiuk said.