Are Chinese Robots Affecting US Citizens? X indicates a suspicious bot campaign over the AI data center, energy policy | Today’s news
About 200 accounts linked to a suspected Chinese bot farm tried to influence Americans’ opinions on AI data centers and energy policy, social media platform X said, according to an Axios report.
Security Team X investigated suspected Chinese accounts involved in influence operations and identified about 200,000 accounts, including about 200 that it said were posting in ways that could manipulate the legitimate debate about US artificial intelligence and energy policy.
The posts included claims about AI data centers putting pressure on the power grid and driving up energy prices. Some of the posts also contained cartoons depicting data center operators profiting at the expense of the public, the report said.
It remains unclear whether X will suspend or remove accounts associated with the suspected bot farm.
Why would China target US data centers?
The alleged influence operation comes at a time when the US and China are competing to develop advanced artificial intelligence systems. Data centers are crucial to the AI industry because they provide the computing infrastructure needed to train and run large AI models.
Efforts to slow the expansion of data centers in the US could therefore affect the broader AI build.
This topic also attracted attention in the US Congress. The House Energy and Commerce Committee in June asked FBI and White House advisers to brief lawmakers on alleged influence campaigns by foreign adversaries, including China, Russia and Iran, aimed at hindering the development of American artificial intelligence and the expansion of data centers.
The committee’s letter cited a report that estimated that opposition campaigns in Virginia alone have delayed or prevented $45.8 billion in data center projects.
But US opposition to data centers is also growing
The alleged campaign of Chinese influence does not mean that opposition to data centers is solely driven by foreign actors.
Americans are increasingly expressing concerns about the impact of large data centers on electricity demand, energy costs and local infrastructure. According to an early August University of Pennsylvania poll cited by Axios, 61% of Americans oppose building new data centers in their area, up 12 percentage points from an earlier poll.
A YouGov poll released this week found that only 24% of Americans think building new data centers is very or somewhat good for the country, while 47% see it negatively.
Growing resistance has also become a problem for the AI industry. Several Wall Street banks cited political opposition to data centers as a risk to the broader AI sector.
Previous AI influence campaigns linked to China
The latest development follows a June report from OpenAI, which said it had disrupted two covert networks linked to China that were using ChatGPT to generate content aimed at influencing US debates on AI energy consumption and technology tariffs.
These campaigns have failed to gain significant traction, but OpenAI said they indicate efforts by foreign actors to exploit economic concerns in the US.
At the same time, critics argue that the growing opposition to data centers cannot simply be dismissed as foreign manipulation. Silicon Valley communications consultant Jim Prosser told Axios that resistance is increasingly visible among Americans directly affected by infrastructure projects.
