How much of the sudden opposition to data centers is due to foreign-influence operations?
America’s sudden revolt against artificial-intelligence data centers presents an uncomfortable question: How much of the opposition is genuinely homegrown, and how much has been cultivated — or at least fertilized — by foreign influence operations?
The honest answer is that we do not know. But recent disclosures give us reason to take the question seriously.
In June, OpenAI revealed that it had disrupted a likely China-based influence operation it called “Data Center Bandwagon.” The operators used ChatGPT to generate English-language comments, cartoons and social-media posts portraying AI companies as wealthy profiteers whose data centers were raising electricity prices for ordinary Americans.
The actors reportedly used VPNs to access ChatGPT from China and issued instructions in Simplified Chinese. They asked the system to write from the perspectives of different kinds of Americans and subsequently posted the material through apparently inauthentic accounts.
OpenAI assessed that the operators were probably working for a private Chinese technology company that performed social-media work for provincial government clients. The operation therefore cannot be definitively traced to an order from Beijing. But neither does it resemble a spontaneous collection of Chinese environmentalists worried about American utility bills.
The operation was organized. Its internal material discussed building believable American personas, using lifestyle content to establish credibility, maintaining backup accounts and encouraging false accounts to interact with one another to create the appearance of organic agreement. Operators studied Facebook groups, hashtags, advertising systems and platform defenses. They also used artificial intelligence to help automate and expand their activity.
Then came another disclosure. In August, X said it had uncovered a suspected Chinese bot farm containing approximately 200,000 accounts. About 200 of those accounts had posted material intended to manipulate the American debate over AI and energy policy. Some of the posts closely resembled content previously identified by OpenAI.
The themes were strikingly consistent: Data centers are straining the grid. Families are paying higher electricity bills. Technology companies are keeping the profits while shifting infrastructure costs onto the public.
The public evidence probably represents a floor, not a ceiling, for Chinese attempts to manipulate the data-center debate. OpenAI and X discovered these activities because they could examine information unavailable to ordinary users. Other operations may use different AI systems, human writers, private communications, compromised accounts or better-established personas. Other platforms may possess additional evidence that they have not identified or disclosed.
Yet the known operation appears to have been remarkably ineffective. An independent Clemson University researcher examined some of the accounts exposed by X and found minimal activity and practically no engagement. Many had no followers. Some posted only two or three times before being suspended. OpenAI likewise concluded that the operation had achieved little or no measurable influence.
China was apparently trying to push the snowball downhill. There is little evidence that these particular accounts created the avalanche.
That distinction is critical because Americans have legitimate reasons to question particular data-center projects. Poorly situated facilities can consume enormous amounts of electricity, place additional pressure on water supplies, require expensive transmission upgrades and generate persistent noise. Developers sometimes promise spectacular economic benefits while producing relatively few permanent jobs after construction ends.
The Economist/YouGov poll found that 61 percent of Americans opposed a data center in their community, including 47 percent of Republicans. Sixty-two percent expected such a facility to increase their electricity bills. Those attitudes cannot plausibly be attributed to a few hundred barely noticed social-media accounts.
This is what makes the Chinese operation both more subtle and more troubling. Effective propaganda does not always invent a grievance. It identifies one that already exists, strips away its qualifications, intensifies its emotional appeal and injects it into an existing political divide.
The operators did not need to fabricate stories about rising capacity prices. They could link to legitimate American reporting and surround it with inflammatory cartoons and populist commentary. A false American persona could introduce the message into a local discussion. Real Americans could then repeat it. Journalists could cover the reaction, and politicians could adopt its language. Once a narrative moves into organic circulation, tracing its original foreign assistance becomes nearly impossible.
That does not turn everyone who opposes a data center into an agent of China. Suggesting otherwise would be unfair and politically disastrous. Indeed, dismissing legitimate ratepayer concerns as foreign propaganda would hand foreign operators exactly what they want: greater division, greater distrust and a government seemingly unwilling to listen to its own people.
The proper response is to separate the legitimate grievance from the manipulative framing. Data centers are essential to American competitiveness, but technology companies should pay for the power generation and grid infrastructure their facilities require. Projects should protect water supplies, respect local land use and provide enforceable community benefits.
China benefits when Americans reject strategically necessary infrastructure. It also benefits when American leaders bulldoze communities and create grievances ripe for exploitation.
The known accounts may represent a failed experiment, one component of a larger operation or merely the portion careless enough to be discovered. We cannot yet say. What we can say is that China-linked actors recognized the data-center controversy as a promising American fault line and attempted to widen it.
The opposition is overwhelmingly real. The foreign effort to exploit it is real, too. America’s challenge is to defeat the manipulation without denying the grievance — and to keep building without forcing ordinary families to carry Big Tech’s costs.
(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)