As negative sentiment toward data center construction reaches a fever pitch, some AI advocates are blaming China for emerging narratives around the rapid growth of the technology’s infrastructure—and the increased negative public attitude surrounding it.
Regardless of how those comments came to land on his social media posts, Mr. Wonderful said China’s role in stoking AI data center discontent in the U.S. is obvious. “I’m not suggesting it,” he said. “It’s an irrefutable fact.”
His comments come at a crossroads for tech researchers, who said that kind of rhetoric is doing more harm than good when it comes to building out that AI infrastructure in the first place. Instead, where AI proponents see an enemy, researchers of the politics surrounding data center construction see the potential for a convenient scapegoat.
“China is a common and comfortable boogeyman in American politics, for right or for wrong,” Flavio Hickel, an assistant professor of political science at Washington College, told Fortune.
The Trump administration has doubled down on similar claims about China’s role in U.S. data center sentiment.
O’Leary and the Department of the Interior did not immediately respond to Fortune’s requests for comment.
Rather than China’s AI advancements being cause for the country to launch an offensive against the U.S. in the so-called AI race, Hickel said it’s more likely AI advocates and the Trump administration—which has pushed for the government to take ownership stakes in AI companies—are wanting to use China as a means of dismissing AI discontent.
“Trump has really railed against China, their unfair practices with regard to the economy, and fentanyl production,” Hickel said. “Trying to blame some of the rhetoric on China could work politically for them.”
Ben Green, assistant professor of information at the University of Michigan, told Fortune there’s meanwhile abundant signs that antagonism toward data centers is real and organic. “Anyone who doubts it should just show up to any of the communities where people are actually fighting data centers,” Green said. “Show up to a town hall, show up to a city council meeting, and you will just very clearly see that these are people who live in this community [and] are clearly very upset about this.”
“There’s a broader sense of class politics in this,” he said. “They are these facilities which bring really close to zero benefits to [the] community, are extracting natural resources, and all of the benefit here is just going to these tech companies and billionaires.”
Green also poured cold water on the argument that China is fueling data center discontent, arguing the campaign would require immense amounts of resources and coordination from an adversary to the U.S. that would be better spent on issues outside of AI infrastructure.
“If China is that good at creating that level of change in public opinion across pretty much every facet of society, that’s just a pretty incredible level of influence,” he said. “I would say, if they could do that, then they would probably be weaponizing that for other things beyond data centers.”
