China Is the Data Center Villain That Techies Love to Blame. The Evidence Disagrees.

Key points

• By summer 2025, 75 percent of Americans said they would oppose a data center being built near them, up from 42 percent the previous year.
• X identified 200 accounts linked to China spreading anti-data center content, but those accounts sat inside a bot network of 200,000 that had nothing to do with data centers.
• OpenAI banned a cluster of accounts in June 2025 it said were linked to the Chinese government, but acknowledged those accounts were exploiting existing anger, not creating it.
• Graphika, a social media analytics firm tracking online opinion, told Wired AI this week that most opposition to data centers is homegrown, with little evidence of significant foreign interference.
• Politicians from both parties, including Texas governor Greg Abbott and Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, are distancing themselves from data centers as midterm elections approach.

Three-quarters of Americans now say they don't want a data center built near them. That figure, up from 42 percent just a year ago, tells you how fast public opinion has turned against the giant server facilities powering AI tools. Prominent tech figures and some Republican politicians have a ready answer for why: China.

Where did the China story come from?

In late August, X said it had found 200 accounts linked to China pushing anti-data center messages. Headlines followed. President Trump wrote on Truth Social that "China could not be happier with this anti Data Center movement."

The numbers don't hold up. X itself ultimately identified 200,000 accounts in the same bot network. The 200 anti-data center accounts were a tiny fraction of a larger spam operation that had nothing specifically to do with data center politics.

OpenAI told a similar story in June, when it banned a cluster of accounts it said were tied to the Chinese government and "testing narratives against AI infrastructure," meaning the physical buildings full of computers that run AI services. The company's own report acknowledged those accounts were riding existing anger, not manufacturing it.

Is there any hard evidence of a Chinese influence campaign?

Not much. China experts who spoke to Wired AI said the main report circulating in Washington leans heavily on insinuation rather than solid proof. Tyler Williams, vice president of intelligence at Graphika, confirmed this week that the picture hasn't changed: real foreign interference at meaningful scale remains hard to find.

Our earlier story on how US data centers depend on Chinese-made hardware makes the influence narrative harder to square: if Chinese AI development depends on the same data center technology, discouraging Americans from building more of it looks like poor strategy.

Blogger Andy Masley, generally sympathetic to data centers and popular with tech-friendly audiences on X, has publicly asked insiders for any concrete evidence of Chinese meddling. Nothing solid has come back. His read on why the narrative persists: "It seems like a very convenient belief. I have my own biases as a Democrat, but I sometimes look at these guys and think, they had to meme themselves into being more right-wing a few years ago. Right-wing people like it when you talk about China."

What is actually driving the opposition?

Environmental worries, noise, water consumption and a general scepticism toward AI and the billionaires behind it. Louise Matsakis, Wired AI's senior China editor, put it plainly: "Americans often find it easier to put the blame on a nebulous other, rather than to actually look at themselves."

For people living near a proposed data center, the China story changes nothing practical. Power grid strain and water use are real concerns regardless of who's amplifying them online. The convenient villain keeps tech boosters from having to answer for those concerns directly, and that's the part worth watching.