A new report alleges foreign-backed campaigns are helping fuel opposition to American AI data centers as Washington treats artificial intelligence as a national security priority.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
The battle over artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States is drawing new scrutiny from lawmakers and policy analysts who say China-linked influence campaigns may be helping drive opposition to the construction of data centers.
Data centers are large computing facilities needed to power artificial intelligence systems, including Grok, ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and other advanced models. As China invests heavily in its own AI capabilities, a growing body of critics argues that foreign-backed campaigns are working inside the United States to slow or block the infrastructure needed for American AI development, according to a Newsmax report.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum recently described the stakes of the AI race in sweeping terms, saying whichever country dominates artificial intelligence is “going to control the world.”
The dispute centers on whether opposition to U.S. data centers is driven primarily by local environmental and infrastructure concerns, or whether some of the pressure is connected to foreign influence efforts aimed at undermining American technological competitiveness.
Data centers require major energy and water resources, making them frequent targets of local opposition. Critics have raised concerns over electricity use, water demand, land use and rising utility bills. Supporters argue that the facilities are essential to maintaining U.S. leadership in AI, national security and the global economy.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., convened a Capitol Hill panel in April to discuss what he called “the existential threat of AI.” At the event, Sanders said “the richest, most powerful people in the world are now building a runaway train with no brakes.”
The panel also included two senior Chinese figures: Zeng Yi, dean of the Beijing Institute of AI Safety and Governance, and Xue Lan, a Tsinghua University professor and counselor to China’s State Council. Both used the forum to downplay the U.S.-China AI race, according to the report.
Earlier this year, Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., introduced the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act, which would freeze new construction of AI data centers in the United States.
President Donald Trump has taken the opposite approach, treating data center development as a national security and economic priority. On Monday, Trump signed several executive orders aimed at addressing security risks posed by foreign adversaries. Last year, he signed an executive order streamlining the permitting process for data centers while providing loans and tax incentives for their construction. In December, he signed another order shielding federal permitting from state and local rules.
In May, the Bitcoin Policy Institute released a 17-page report titled “Foreign Influence in the Campaign Against American AI,” which alleged that China has supported efforts to create distrust of U.S. data centers and block AI programs.
Sam Lyman, the institute’s head of research and a former senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, said the influence campaign operates through three overlapping channels: Chinese state media messaging, a U.S.-based nonprofit network funded by Shanghai-based American businessman Neville Roy Singham, and more than $2 billion in foreign billionaire-backed dark money routed into organizations calling for data center moratoriums.
“None of this is hidden,” the report states. “Each layer is documentable from primary sources.”
Lyman told Newsmax that the United States cannot win the AI race without sufficient computing infrastructure.
“Data centers are critical to winning the AI race. Whoever wins, will control the information layer of the global economy, which is why the U.S., with its commitment to free expression, must win,” Lyman said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has described AI as “an important strategic handhold” for Beijing’s effort to achieve global technological leadership. China’s national plan calls for the country to become the world’s AI innovation center by 2030.
The report said Chinese state media outlets such as CGTN have warned Americans that data centers could increase electricity bills, strain power grids and contribute to global warming. At the same time, those outlets have promoted Beijing’s subsidies that reduce energy costs for Chinese AI companies by up to 50%.
Inside the United States, the Bitcoin Policy Institute report identified a network of 501(c)(3) nonprofits funded by Singham as the most “operationally significant” actor. Tax records cited in the report show Singham, described as a tech billionaire and Marxist activist, has contributed about $285 million to activist groups since 2017.
Singham’s wife, Jodie Evans, co-founded CodePink, a far-left protest group that has campaigned against U.S. AI data centers and Pentagon AI efforts, portraying them as part of a new Cold War against China.
The report said multiple signatories of a coalition letter that helped prompt the Sanders-Ocasio-Cortez moratorium bill had received Singham-linked funding.
The movement has also received funding from foreign billionaires including Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss and British billionaire Alan Parker through the Oak Foundation. Together, the report said, those funders have directed more than $2 billion into U.S. advocacy, with about $39 million reaching 12 organizations actively opposing data center expansion.
One $1.3 million Wyss grant went to a signatory of the December 2025 moratorium demand letter, using language that later appeared in the Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez legislation, according to the report.
The opposition has had results. About five dozen local moratoriums have been adopted, temporarily halting construction of new data centers in multiple states, according to Good Jobs First, a nonprofit that tracks economic development and corporate subsidies.
Environmental concerns have become a major argument against new facilities. Ocasio-Cortez displayed jars of brown water during a May 20 congressional hearing, saying a Meta AI data center in Georgia was responsible. The water came from four private wells and was likely tied to ordinary construction dirt that began when Meta broke ground, according to the report. An investigation found no evidence that operation of the data center damaged the water supply.
The incident nevertheless fueled local concern over water availability near the project. Experts cited in the report said most data centers use less water than what is needed to maintain a typical 18-hole golf course.
Hudson Institute research fellow Zineb Riboua told Newsmax that opposition to data centers is also rooted in a broader ideological critique of Western capitalism and American technological power.
“These groups arrive with a fully formed ideological inheritance,” Riboua said.
“They hold the conviction that Western capitalism is structurally predatory and that American technological power is merely colonialism by another name.
“The data center is simply the latest surface of this.”
Riboua said the groups opposing American data centers rarely apply the same pressure to China.
“China is building data centers at a scale and speed that dwarfs the American buildout, consuming coal-fired power with no environmental review, no community consultation, and no indigenous land acknowledgment — and there is not a single CodePink rally, NAACP resolution, or climate justice statement directed at any of it,” she said.
Public resistance to local data center projects has grown. A Gallup poll released in May found that seven in 10 Americans oppose new AI data centers in their local area, with Democratic opposition especially strong. Hundreds of local disputes, lawsuits and rallies have delayed or blocked projects worth tens of billions of dollars.
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., has criticized the moratorium push, calling it “lunacy” and a “China-first kind of a policy.”
Republicans in Congress are increasingly focused on alleged foreign funding tied to anti-data center activism. Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has opened an investigation into Chinese money flows to activist organizations in the United States.
Smith recently urged Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to revoke the tax-exempt status of groups that receive foreign funding and oppose AI data centers, arguing that such activity “jeopardize our national and economic security.”
“We’ve tracked down Chinese money that’s come into U.S. non-for-profits that are organizing the protests against data centers because China wants to win computational dominance,” Smith said.
“If they can sow discord and chaos within the American citizenry, they’ll slow down [the U.S. in] the AI race — and they win,” he said. “We have to be guarded.”
The fight over data centers is likely to remain a major front in the broader U.S.-China technology competition. For policymakers, the question is whether opposition to new projects reflects normal local resistance to large infrastructure or a coordinated effort to slow the buildout of systems needed for American AI leadership.
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