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China, Russia and Others Seek To Inflame Debate Over AI Data Centers (nytimes.com) 87

Posted by BeauHD from the rural-rage-bait dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: A state-owned newspaper in China recently published a satellite image of a data center in Gainesville, Va., writing in English that the development of artificial intelligence posed a threat to Americans' physical and financial well-being. A comic strip made to look as if it had been published by a Maryland news outlet -- created with OpenAI's ChatGPT by people in China, the tech company said -- circulated on X this year, blaming data centers for soaring electricity bills. It showed a tycoon smoking a cigar and clutching bags of cash. A video shared on X by a known covert Russian influence operation questioned the viability of a data center that an American company, Firebird, is constructing in Armenia, the small Caucasus nation that has been a focus of Kremlin pressure. "The country's electrical grid instability may render it useless," the video's narrator says.

All are examples of a push by foreign adversaries to seize on what polls have shown is deep ambivalence -- verging at times on hostility -- about the spread of the data centers needed to power A.I. in the United States and elsewhere. China, Russia and, to a lesser extent, Iran have sought to use state media outlets to turn the controversy over data centers in the United States into "a domestic fracture point," according to a new analysis by Alethea, a threat intelligence company, which identified scores of articles and posts on social media this year. These campaigns, whose impact on public opinion remains to be seen, have raised alarms in Washington, where A.I. is seen as a top issue heading into this year's midterm elections.
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China, Russia and Others Seek To Inflame Debate Over AI Data Centers More

China, Russia and Others Seek To Inflame Debate Over AI Data Centers

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  • and? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Monday July 13, 2026 @11:04AM (#66236118) Homepage Journal

    Every nation does this, they mock the failures of their adversaries. We do it constantly relating to China and Russia. So what?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      The problem is the low education standards in the US. They clearly have them to keep their own population better under control, but they also make attacks like this much, much easier.

    • Re:and? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by swillden ( 191260 ) <shawn-ds@willden.org> on Monday July 13, 2026 @11:25AM (#66236188) Journal

      Every nation does this, they mock the failures of their adversaries. We do it constantly relating to China and Russia. So what?

      I think you're misreading the intent. This isn't random mockery by individuals, shared with their friends for fun, this is a focused disinformation campaign being targeted through western communication channels. China is concerned about what it might mean geopolitically if AI turns out to be as significant as it might, and the US wins the AI race. This is an effort to slow AI development. A small and opportunistic one, probably not part of the core strategy, but a cheap, easy one that might have some beneficial effect.

      • Re:and? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by alcmena ( 312085 ) on Monday July 13, 2026 @11:34AM (#66236202)

        Given how much screaming I've seen by the AI & DC boosters, how certain are we that this isn't a false flag operation created by those boosters to say, "See, all that outrage against AI / DCs is caused by Chinese / Russian propaganda and America is falling for it!"?

        I think the part that bothers me the most is that seems just as plausible as China / Russia actually creating propaganda to do the same...

        • The AI companies will run with the report, that's to be expected, but it doesn't mean it isn't also true. It is something that both Russia and China have done and continue to do. Weaponizing our openness is a long-standing strategy of theirs.

        • The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any?

          You see what's happening here? We can't believe either side...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        Astroturfing is, but definition, and organized activity pretending to not be an organized activity. I've absolutely no reason to believe that various US organizations don't engage in it.

        • Astroturfing is, but definition, and organized activity pretending to not be an organized activity. I've absolutely no reason to believe that various US organizations don't engage in it.

          Sure, but that requires positing that this isn't actually Chinese activity at all, but US entities pretending to be Chinese entities pretending to be US people. That's possible, but it seems like it would require some evidence.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by HiThere ( 15173 )

            No. Saying that the US and various US entities do it does not imply that China and Russia aren't also doing it, and perhaps at greater volume. (Though that last needs at least a bit of evidence.)

            OTOH, it's quite plausible that the tactics are more effective in the US than in more tightly controlled environments.

      • this is a focused disinformation campaign being targeted through western communication channels

        Much like the 1960s/70s Soviet disinformation campaign regarding nuclear energy. Even some Greenpeace founders now admit that Nuclear should have been part of the CO2 reduction movement, that their opposition was counterproductive. The German Green Party even admits they were successfully infiltrated and influenced by the Soviets working through the East German Stasi.

        Social media has made such efforts easier and more effective. For example, TikTok disproportionately promoting CCP aligned content.

      • This has nothing whatsoever to do with the "AI race". It is simply meant for creating dissent which hopefully destabilises the country. Nothing more, nothing less. Same as paying the whole far right trolls.

    • Do you, now?

    • Every nation does this, they mock the failures of their adversaries. We do it constantly relating to China and Russia. So what?

      Some countries are thinner skinned than others and are more likely to engage in snowflakery. I'm sure the Founding Fathers are spinning in their graves.

  • It's propaganda-ception. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nightflameauto ( 6607976 ) on Monday July 13, 2026 @11:04AM (#66236122)

    What's worse? The propaganda, or the propaganda about the propaganda? It's propaganda-ception. "Oh, all the bad news about datacenters is totally generated by China. Because they want us to fall behind. Don't believe it."

    Do propagandists propagandize each other? Are we dying, or we were only led to believe we were dying by propaganda fighting other propaganda? Do we even exist? Or are we just propaganda machines all the way down?

    • So are you saying that these articles were actually domestically generated, but designed to seem like they were both foreign-generated and disguised to look domestically generated, so people would refuse to let foreign state actors trick them into protesting data centers, and instead embrace the data centers along with the higher electricity prices and other side effects?

      Or maybe they actually were foreign generated, but designed to seem domestically generated to seem foreign generated to seem domestically

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      The problem is the people that fall for this crap. Too many voters with no brains.

      • Democracy's downfall is that the largest voting demographics are the least educated, least critical-thinking, and most responsive to charisma and lies.

        America works around this by rejecting "pure democracy" and ostensibly operating as a constitutional republic, while actually operating as an oligarchy. It means the people who make all the really important decisions are un-elected and loyal only to themselves, but also (most of the time, at least) in one of the upper echelons of the intelligence/education p

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          America works around this by rejecting "pure democracy" and ostensibly operating as a constitutional republic, while actually operating as an oligarchy. It means the people who make all the really important decisions are un-elected and loyal only to themselves, but also (most of the time, at least) in one of the upper echelons of the intelligence/education perspective and recognize that they need the economy to remain functional in order for them to remain in power.

          It really does not look to me that this is what is going on at the moment. Before? Probably.

  • I'm not a great believer in a massive rush for AI data centres. They will be overbuilt and building early increases the damage. However, there are clearly better ares for them - for example Scotland and there are clearly worse ares for them - for example the US has such a disfunctional power system that it is having to increase coal power in order to build this up.

    Having this outside interference means that data centres will be built in a panic in the US, where long term it's impossible to provide cheap pow

    • The energy problem isn't a long term problem. Smaller, on-site nuclear is coming. [interestin...eering.com]

      And, though it may annoy many readers here, Trump is part of this push. I'm sure that after decades of demanding more modern nuclear reactors that suddenly Slashdot will recoil in horror and demand we burn whale oil or some such.

      • Good: Nuclear reactors, hey even I can admit that if the policy is working

        Bad: Illegal tariffs, illegal forever war in Iran, scuttling his own signature trade deal, "100 deals in 100 days", responsible for 27% of total US debt, stagnating economy, billions in insider trading, illegal bribery schemes via crypto, backdoor dealing to his own family and friends, try to push coal just as hard as nuclear, if not harder, using taxpayer money to cancel renewable energy projects, pardoning 70+ criminal fraudsters wh

      • Smaller, on-site nuclear is coming.

        It has been coming for decades. It will be coming decades from now. Nuclear power is very expensive and unable to compete with more reliable and stable alternatives like battery backed wind power. Plant efficiency improves with scale, reducing this problem, and so gigawatt level power plants up to 5GW are just inevitable. The exception will be military applications and possibly small special cases such as mid sized isolated islands or the Antarctic.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Nobody is benefitting from this.

      Nobody is benefitting from irrationality. In fact, it does extreme damage. Yet we have tons of it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      Note that even if it is motivated by dubious ways, even if it is propaganda, that doesn't *necessarily* mean it is disinfirmation.

      As they say, the best propaganda is true.

      • As they say, the best propaganda is true.

        Absolutely, but in my view facing up to the truth and facing it early is important. It does become disinformation, however, if it gives you the impression that something that is true (immigrants do attack people) is the majority (so do other people; mostly immigrants less). If you get the right impression then you might do things better (there's nothing wrong with putting systems for stopping criminal immigrants, it helps the other immigrants too). If you get the wrong impression (ban all immigration) you w

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Junta ( 36770 )

          Fair point, though in the case of datacenters, there's not a whole lot they need to even exaggerate in terms of downsides.

          Whatever the upsides may be of these datacenters, those are diluted across the reach of the internet and the local community does not particularly benefit. That's the whole point of modern technology, that the reach of a datacenter is far and is run so efficiently you don't even need local labor.

          The downsides are conversely concentrated. In global context, the datacenter downsides are g

      • We have a story in which the great scare is use of water in Scotland, a country known mostly for it's hot beaches and deserts. Think about that please.

  • They're not wrong (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SumDog ( 466607 ) on Monday July 13, 2026 @11:09AM (#66236132) Homepage Journal
    I mean, it might be propaganda, but is it wrong? I think people are pretty hostile to these things in their backyards to begin with. They're not creating ragebait, they're taking a serious, existing political issue and capitalizing on it.

    Now the great irony is China doing this when they have their own horrifically worse massive surveillance state, but make no mistake: these Data Centers are for the AI surveillance state.

    They're not using all that compute to make cat videos and write code. Our end uses can't even account for a fraction of the capacity they're building. These companies are lying to us about what it's all for.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by SendBot ( 29932 )

      A sense of proportion might help:

      - Data centers use water yes, but people waste way more water than that pointlessly on their lawns. There's no mass movement against that, but it would be more helpful if there was. (yes, it's more nuanced and complex than this. DCs should be resourceful and not mess up groundwater)

      - It's being used for surveillance-state AI, but that was happening anyways, and it makes the US a lot of money as an export. It's *ALSO* being used by nerds to vibe code flight sims, and business

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by SumDog ( 466607 )
        Carpet factories use more water and dump more waste. The water is an issue, mainly because they're pulling aquifers in the desert and the "closed loop" systems still have evaporation. That water leaves the watershed and travels hundreds of miles. Sure you can't destroy water, but drinking water is rare and difficult. Still, the water issues are not what people should be focusing on. A lot of that is not the core issue.

        The core issues include electricity, building resources and noise. The low frequency so

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by allo ( 1728082 )

          Why wouldn't data center noises stop? They follow the same inverse square law. Are you sure the videos aren't ragebait?

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by SumDog ( 466607 )
            No, I think this guy's analysis is pretty sound:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

            I mean, you can hear how bad it is if you just look for local news clips of people complaining. I have a high school friend who is a logistics manager involve in plant construction and he's been contracted by his company to several of these data centers. He said the water stuff is overblown, but the noise, energy and general pollution are not; not to mention the scale and speed of the build-outs.

            and just look at the

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by allo ( 1728082 )

              The water stuff comes from a book that confused cubic meter with liters.
              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

              For the electricity ... I think they specify the data centers in Megawatts, so we have a reasonable estimate. The question is what we want to use as comparison? Steel industry? Or usual consumers? How many households are acceptable? Average household in what area?
              People say things like "Energy like X households" without specifying what they think how many households are acceptable or not. That's one of t

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by alcmena ( 312085 )

      They're lying to their investors, and quite possibly, to themselves. I don't think they have some massive surveillance plans baked in to these datacenter build outs. To me, that implies they've thought that far ahead, and I honestly don't think they have. Instead, they seem to be in the "Field of Dreams" mode... "If we build it, they will come!"

    • Yeah, it's probably wrong. Especially if its coming from wumao and/or Russian troll farms.

    • Re:They're not wrong (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AleRunner ( 4556245 ) on Monday July 13, 2026 @11:55AM (#66236270)

      You certainly aren't wrong. The imposition of authoritarian measures in Western countries, like Chat Control in the EU and age verification in the UK is very much to do with the need of AI companies to be able to identify who are real people and which "people" are actually other AIs so that the latter don't poison their training data.

      • That's a stretch. Not what I would call plausible.

        • Microsoft, Google and Meta all spoke up explicitly in support of chat control. They released joint statements in support [blog.google]. Since these are the companies the data comes from they are the AI companies that matter and ones like OpenAI and Anthropic are largely just consumers.

    • Re:They're not wrong (Score:4, Informative)

      by aaarrrgggh ( 9205 ) on Monday July 13, 2026 @12:09PM (#66236304)

      Most modern data centers look and behave more like a power plant or large industrial facility. When they are installed at appropriate locations with reasonable setbacks from neighbors, and basic sound attenuation strategies they can be fine. When they use outside air cooling with no silencers then it can be quite miserable at scale. Older data centers simply didn't have the density to be as big of a nuisance.

      I compare it to an industrial feedlot. It shapes the city for miles outside its perimeter. Most of the benefits don't go to the people that are affected. There really is no way for it to be a good neighbor no matter how hard they try to distract people.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by swillden ( 191260 )

      Now the great irony is China doing this when they have their own horrifically worse massive surveillance state, but make no mistake: these Data Centers are for the AI surveillance state.

      That makes no sense. Why would China care about getting the US population to resist the deployment of domestic surveillance?

      No, what China is concerned about is that AI may provide a significant economic and geopolitical advantages to the US. That may or may not actually happen, but it could represent an enormous change in the balance of power. China is trying to enlist the aid of the American population in slowing AI development in the US because it wants time to catch up.

      Or maybe you're right, in w

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by vyvepe ( 809573 )

        Now the great irony is China doing this when they have their own horrifically worse massive surveillance state, but make no mistake: these Data Centers are for the AI surveillance state.

        That makes no sense. Why would China care about getting the US population to resist the deployment of domestic surveillance?

        It can make sense. If China's government believes that surveillance stabilizes government then they have an incentive to prevent surveillance in USA so that USA's government can be more easily destabilized. Less surveillance will also allow easier insertion of China's spies into USA.

        But I think that the big data center investment is primarily driven by hopes of investors that the AI is going to have huge enough (non-surveillance) commercial impact to justify the investments. The surveillance part of it is

        • But I think that the big data center investment is primarily driven by hopes of investors that the AI is going to have huge enough (non-surveillance) commercial impact to justify the investments. The surveillance part of it is negligible. But AI will be used for surveillance as well of course.

          This is my read as well. Surveillance has nothing to with what's driving it, though surveillance will almost certainly take advantage of it.

    • I think people are pretty hostile to these things in their backyards to begin with

      To begin with was around 1990. Nobody was complaining about Datacenters until oh... *checks watch*... Last year.

  • Sure seems like people around here were hopping made about foreign disinformation campaigns a few years ago. How interesting.

  • But (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Monday July 13, 2026 @11:42AM (#66236236)

    Are they wrong?

  • Framing (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Monday July 13, 2026 @11:57AM (#66236276) Homepage Journal

    It doesn't matter if it's bad - if China and Russia agree it's bad you have to be for it.

    You can never agree with China because they have a totalitarian AI Surveillance Police State there so you must support a totalitarian AI Surveillance Police State here.

    If you are against techo-feudalism you must be one of them Putin Lovers.

    - The New York Times / Langley, apparently.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by evanh ( 627108 )

      Sounds like USA is jealous and just wants to catch up. No shortage of pro-surveillance talk all round. Especially in AI circles.

  • Pouring gasoline on an oil-refinery fire? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Todd Knarr ( 15451 ) on Monday July 13, 2026 @12:02PM (#66236290) Homepage

    Russia, China and Iran trying to inflame the AI data-center debate is like pouring 5 gallons of gasoline on an oil-refinery fire: technically you did make it worse but by such a small amount nobody's going to notice.

  • Voice of America? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by methano ( 519830 ) on Monday July 13, 2026 @12:03PM (#66236292)
    Wasn't this what Voice of America was all about, except that we held the high moral ground? Now that we've (the US under Trump) ceded the high moral ground, I guess it makes sense to get rid of it.
  • I'm sorry, the people who are the biggest proponents of AI are complaining the internet is filled with bullshit? Insert tiny violin solo here.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by whitroth ( 9367 )

      You've got that dead right.

      And they think they "need" to inflame us against hyperscale data center - which Erin Brockovitch notes are overwhelmingly being built in drought-ridden areas?

  • It showed a tycoon smoking a cigar and clutching bags of cash.

    Yeah, that sounds about right. Put a frown instead of a smile on the Monopoly game character and you have a pretty good metaphor for Trump's America. Actually, it would also be valid for prior decades - but Trump perfected that brand of decadence.

    ... examples of a push by foreign adversaries to seize on what polls have shown is deep ambivalence -- verging at times on hostility -- about the spread of the data centers needed to power A.I. in the United States and elsewhere...

    Adversaries to whom? The corporate / government sector, or the citizens getting fucked over? A country is not a homogeneous entity whose constituent parts all have the same needs and desires - hence class and tribalism and political parties. I'm sure the people org

  • China, maybe (Score:3)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Monday July 13, 2026 @03:20PM (#66236732)

    But Russia and Iran? They have no meaningful A.I. offerings to compete with. China does, but their tactic would be to promote the market for A.I. And then undermine US sunk costs with their lower priced services. And come to market with cheaper DRAM aimed at consumers.

    It's mainly plain old FUD. Just stir up some griping about "those damned Communists". Neither Russia or Iran being a member.

  • Data centers will eat a lot of resources that we may not have enough of to go around as it is
    before building a new one creating a new variable in the overall equation.

    I don't need China / Russia / whomever to tell me that putting extremely data / water hungry
    data centers into areas who barely have a stable electrical grid or water supply is a bad idea.

    Those in favor of putting them in everywhere ( resource availability be damned ) will simply try
    to convince the idiots in charge ( politicians ) that it's som

  • His wet dream would be the torch and pitchfork folks going after terrestrial datacenters after he deploys his untouchable space DC's. Mwahahaha!

  • Interestingly enough, they are using AI influencers to spread tension / misinformation in south east asia (or at least in Malaysia and Singapore).

    https://www.channelnewsasia.co... [channelnewsasia.com]

    Will not be surprised if they have similar ops in Europe, Africa, South America, etc as well.

  • That'll confuse the hell out of a lot of people here. 'China and Russia are bad. AI is also bad. But China and Russia are against AI. Does not compute.'

    I believe what's happening is either this is a desperate false flag operation by AI companies - our enemies are against it, so clearly this means we must keep shovelling more money into the AI furnace. Or, probably more likely, China and Russia (mistakenly) believe that AI is a good thing and are trying to make sure their own domestic AI does not fall too fa

  • Occam's razor. They don't want us to get ahead, so they are using any means necessary to slow down the creation of our AI infrastructure while they catch up and then (they hope) get ahead. Future wars are always scary. But when has attempting to delay the technology that will be integral to winning those wars EVER worked? Better to just stay ahead of the curve if you can and be on top.

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