Is China Secretly Fueling America's Data Center Rage? (axios.com) 160
alternative_right shares a report from Axios: Roughly 200 accounts from a suspected Chinese bot farm have quietly tried to influence Americans to oppose AI data centers on social media, X said Thursday night. The X Safety team probed suspected Chinese accounts involved in influence operations and identified 200,000 accounts, including 200 accounts "posting in a manner that could manipulate a legitimate debate about American AI and energy policy," the team said in a tweet.
The posts included content on how AI strains the electricity grid and increases utility prices and "cartoons that depicted data-center operators enriching themselves at the public's expense." It's unclear what, if any, action X will take to suspend or delete accounts from the bot farm. One of the reports mentioned in the article estimates that opposition campaigns have delayed or obstructed roughly $45.8 billion in data center projects in Virginia alone.
Jim Prosser, a former Twitter communications executive, pushed back on Silicon Valley claims that opposition to data centers is a "Chinese psyop," arguing that Big Tech is using the label to dismiss legitimate local concerns. "If you can get both Greg Abbott and Kathy Hochul agreeing on something, it's probably not a Chinese psyop," he told Axios.
Prosser said the industry needs to spend more time listening to affected communities rather than dismissing them from afar: "If you're a [venture capitalist] in Atherton or Menlo Park opining about how somebody in Ohio should feel, and you've never been to Ohio, that's a problem."
The posts included content on how AI strains the electricity grid and increases utility prices and "cartoons that depicted data-center operators enriching themselves at the public's expense." It's unclear what, if any, action X will take to suspend or delete accounts from the bot farm. One of the reports mentioned in the article estimates that opposition campaigns have delayed or obstructed roughly $45.8 billion in data center projects in Virginia alone.
Jim Prosser, a former Twitter communications executive, pushed back on Silicon Valley claims that opposition to data centers is a "Chinese psyop," arguing that Big Tech is using the label to dismiss legitimate local concerns. "If you can get both Greg Abbott and Kathy Hochul agreeing on something, it's probably not a Chinese psyop," he told Axios.
Prosser said the industry needs to spend more time listening to affected communities rather than dismissing them from afar: "If you're a [venture capitalist] in Atherton or Menlo Park opining about how somebody in Ohio should feel, and you've never been to Ohio, that's a problem."
No (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: No (Score:5, Informative)
We as consumers suffers from the data center building race with extreme prices on memory and storage media.
All we can hope for is a burst bubble.
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This is the worst best thing I've read in a long time. Just amazingly on target and correct.
Re: No (Score:5, Funny)
Possibly (Score:5, Informative)
China could be behind it but they're also correct
Re:Possibly (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think that energy guzzling, noisy, water draining data centers are a good thing, you are welcome to make that argument.
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If you're screaming about "water guzzling data centers" but saying nothing about california's alfalfa and almond growers you're a useful idiot.
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Which industry does more good for you?
That one's easy. Without data centers, I would have to use a paper map. I'd have to do my own calculations on a calculator. I'd be back in the lifeless 80s.
Without agriculture, I'd be dead.
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Without agriculture, I'd be dead.
I am sure you could survive without almonds.
Re: Possibly (Score:2)
They were not even talking about California specifically though? Just about data centers in general across the US.
Also nice whataboutism.
Re: Possibly (Score:2)
How do you know he doesn't also say things about those, coward?
Re: Possibly (Score:2)
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Data center water usage isn't a universal problem. It's a location specific issue.
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I am not an expert, but if I understand correctly, most of t
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Your argument basically defends any propaganda as a good thing. And you seem to believe that emotion-based fear mongering can be successfully countered with rational fact based counter arguments. I strongly disagree will all of that.
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emotion-based fear mongering can be successfully countered with rational fact based counter arguments. I strongly disagree will all of that.
That always happens when you mistake fact-based rationality for partisan persuasion.
The problem with your arguments is that you love one party too much, and can't accept the reality that both parties are lying mud sacks, filled with leaches and clinger-ons and occassionally a man of wild ambition, including yours.
Re: Possibly (Score:2)
Re: Possibly (Score:2)
Should free speech be extended and honored from foreign entities? If only there was a way to flag and tag the source.
US citizens are allowed free speech and people on the Internet are allowed to be anonymous. Too much of it good thing can be dangerous.
Even with these barriers enabled, thereâ(TM)s still ways around it. Find some person paste in the US that has the same lineup thinking youâ(TM)re interested in manipulating and you can start supplementing through monetary tips. Add some persuasive co
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Interesting how quickly Americans go from God given, inalienable rights to "should they be allowed to foreigners?"
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Ah, so free speech should be limited?
I'm not saying I disagree. I'm saying the propaganda needs some tuning. Sounds like you and the GP think maybe a great firewall might not be such a bad idea yeah?
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Should free speech be extended and honored from foreign entities?
Yes. Concretely, free speech is what allows us to have this kind of interview [youtu.be], which has value.
There should be limits on political donations.
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The point of free speech is that it doesn't matter where the idea came from, it's an open market of ideas.
The point of foreign trolls is to rage-bait and create (or exacerbate existing) divisions among Americans: Divide and Conquer. They do not care about the topic, only that the divisions grow -for "a house divided against itself cannot stand." *
* quote from Abraham Lincoln, who borrowed it from the Bible.
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Re: Possibly (Score:2)
Propaganda is always easier when you're armed with a bloody good point. So try to not let the enemy have those.
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Fanning the flames that have already started when people looked at their electric bills.
Even more so since half these data centers will end up bankrupt, abandoned, and stick the county taxpayers with demolition and cleanup costs.
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China could be behind it but they're also correct
I guarantee they looked at an ongoing situation and said "Should we further this or dampen it?" and said holy shit what a stupid fucking question we are absolutely going with the option that sounds like it will give us the edge in this race
Never mind that we could just as well build them in places with more water and proper energy supply conditionals in their contracts, the CNs merely had to pick the obvious answer from the two choices above. It potentially _sounds_ like something that could potentially inf
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It would be highly funny if a Chinese action designed to destroy America was actually what slowed things down a little and saved the US economy. Definitely it's a good discussion to have.
However, the thing about mindlessly saying "they're right" is that they will be targeting the best data centers and ignoring the worst. Data centers need to be built where there's an excess of renewable energy and be used to subsidize huge battery build ups in those places. Done right, putting demand in the right places pay
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However, the thing about mindlessly saying "they're right" is that they will be targeting the best data centers and ignoring the worst. Data centers need to be built where there's an excess of renewable energy and be used to subsidize huge battery build ups in those places. Done right, putting demand in the right places pays for power that can be used for everyone. Instead some people are proposing that they generate their own power - often using fossil fuels.
I think if people were able to visualize just a single solitary rack of a data center next to the 12-24 ton battery able to store enough energy to power that rack for just a single day they would quickly snap out of this madness.
I think data centers should be solar powered and stop operating when the sun stops shining. That way the bullshit is self-limiting.
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No (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't need China's help to be against the fucking stupidity going on right now.
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Your statement is absolutely correct.
But that doesn't mean China is above fueling that particular fire. Or that they aren't doing that out of spite.
All those free and near free models coming out of China, you think they do that to "stimulate openness"? Nothing more than PR-speak for spite. And as a bonus, every investing-fool it putting far too much money into AI, which is money that could have been used to protect countries against the Chinese onslaught. Either against their ideology or against their finan
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All those free and near free models coming out of China
A large portion of those are nothing at all to do with the datacenter rage. Many of those free models run on any high end GPU.
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"China thinks about the future and plans ahead, because they are so horrible and spiteful" is a hell of a take.
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
The decline of the US empire started with the ascension to power of neoliberals, both parties, starting with the election of Reagan. Everything about the contemporary US is downstream from that. No matter who's in charge, the US has chosen business over people every time since.
The first graph here says pretty much everything you need to know https://www.economicshelp.org/... [economicshelp.org]
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The decline started with Reagan, perhaps already with Nixon.
A country that has no vision where it want to be as a culture in 30 or 50 years ... how is that supposed to work.
Nitpickers claim: US of Awesomeness, has no culture.
Well, Americans you meet all over the world look like humble and educated. Perhaps because they travel? Perhaps they are well off enough to travel, and hence well off enough to be educated?
As a mass: you look like barbarians.
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But we can be :D :D
Just kill the upper 10.0%, 1.0% and 0.1%
New McCarthy Strat. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, a new strategy. "If you don't support data centers you're Unamerican and clearly a Chinese asset."
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Part of the bigger strategy, going on forever now, but especially pronounced in the last decade or so, "If you don't support government policy, you are unamerican, and clearly an $enemy asset.
There's a new word for such a someone now. Domestic terrorist. Wrongthink alone is enough to be called one.
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Fueling Data Center Rage? (Score:4, Insightful)
The posts included content on how AI strains the electricity grid and increases utility prices and "cartoons that depicted data-center operators enriching themselves at the public's expense."
Seems like they're pointing out facts. Inconvenient ones for data center builders/owners, but are they wrong? Doesn't seem like it. The alternative is more gaslighting from data center owners -- like Musk, who owns X ...
The X Safety team probed suspected Chinese accounts involved in influence operations and identified 200,000 accounts, including 200 accounts "posting in a manner that could manipulate a legitimate debate about American AI and energy policy," the team said in a tweet.
Can't have China potentially "manipulating ... debate" while data center owners are trying to manipulate citizens and politicians. Well, not all politicians; some are already all in, Trump says communities that oppose data centers are "making a mistake" [axios.com] while some see the writing on the wall, Republicans are breaking with Donald Trump on data centers [politico.com].
Yes of course they are (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course they are. But doesn't mean the home-grown rage isn't real. They probably are egging on the AI companies to build more data centers and waste resources and get into further debt.
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sounds an awful lot like cope (Score:2)
"our product isn't selling, it's going to make our circular financing scam collapse... we'd better blame some foreigners that our business has been unsustainable from the beginning"
Getting tired of Cold War 2.0 already (Score:3, Insightful)
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The people of China consider their country a working democracy. Not a dictatorship.
Perhaps you should read up how modern China works, politically, and socially.
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To save you time: 0, 14%, annually (so nothing but hear reports and give rubber stamps), yes - the CCP, yes - Ji Xing Ping's.
They use Marx's endless layers of commit
Doing the right thing for the wrong reason. (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's the optimistic take! What happens if the AI bubble bursts and this all goes south? Then all those data centers are worse than worthless. All that land, money and water they used will be totally wasted, and we're not talking an insignificant amount.
Having skepticism about the future of AI is a good thing, even if it has a future. It's not healthy to be building these trillion dollar projects based on wild speculation about a future that may never happen even in an optimistic scenario. If this all goes south, everyone who didn't build a datacenter is going to be better off than anyone who did.
So sure, let China go crazy poisoning their land and water with bad investments in obsolete data centers, while we proceed with a little more caution and sanity. I don't know about you, but that seems healthy to me. One advantage of living in a free and open society is you can express skepticism of bad ideas.
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You can run models at home since quite long time.
Depending what you want to do, even pretty powerful stuff.
I ran Qwent(sp?) on a 2011 Power Book last week. Not fast, but faster than talking to my father :P
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My father had an Apple II. It was one of a wave of "personal computers" that would let you run things like word processors and spreadsheets at home.
Guess where most people run those things now.
No (Score:3)
WOW that's low.
Chinese bots don't need to fuel anti-data center sentiment.
Is this really a crazy psyop to make me doubt my own convictions against data centers? Wow, the balls on these soulless scum...
Paid for by Mr. Wonderful (Score:3)
Uhh.. this sounds like an argument to copy the Soviet Union's recipe for economic implosion.
DC noise and pollution doesn't need China (Score:5, Insightful)
Axios Shenanigans (Score:4, Informative)
For context, Axios is run by one Barak Ravid, a former serving member of the IDF. And not just a grunt, but one who served in the Israeli Intelligence Corps Unit 8200.
Ever since the war with Iran started Axios has been running propaganda piece after propaganda piece promoting American Warhawk rhetoric.
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Doesn't matter, obsolete designs (Score:5, Interesting)
Consider this... The reason we need data centers that massive today is because the tech isn't ready.
NVidia B300 filled racks using 100kw each are barely capable of running modern frontier models. Even if we designed more powerful chips that could do the job, there isn't enough silicon wafers produced in the world to do the job. Even the most amazing semiconductor technologies on earth are not good enough. Consider that even if we could build 1TB HBM4 NPUs, the time it would take to generate a token on a transformer that large would be slow.
What we know
Transformers will leave the data center between 2030-2032 as it will never make sense to run transformer inference in racks. It's at least 1000x less green than local inference.
Intel, AMD, NVidia, Apple and every RISC-V/ARM chip supplier on earth is 100% focused on making local inference the thing.
We will soon stop training massive models that start becoming obsolete the moment the last parameter is fed. Even now, Qwen 3.8 27b is good enough for a year at least (first model to do this).
For LLMs, we'll just stop wasting cycles on huge networks and will focus more on stronger harnesses attached to better data sources.
Cloud AI will be more about acting as data providers. Models will become reasoning engines, the "smarts" will come from things like vector databases.
Vector databases will use kilowatts, not megawatts. Data storage will be much smaller.
Things like Intel's dead Optane product will become the future of datacenters. Google Search, Microsoft Bing, maybe Baidu are the best positioned companies for what comes next and they don't need 100KW per rack to deliver. If I were to enter this segment, I would pair a customized KLV object query engine onto a 1024 bit wide ecc memory bus and connect it with low cost networking (think Intel's Ethernet fabric tech). Then add a super capacitor to flush to flash on power loss... Or just hope Optane comes back. Superfast, massive, token based vector databases are the future of cloud LLM
What's next. In 3-5 years, every single rack in every single AI data center is trash
This is fact.
Even now H100 racks should be heading to scrap.
The chips are slow, they use old heat spreader tech, they get almost no performance per watt compared to B300. They are much harder to cool. They have so little VRAM it takes piles of them to run newer models. PCIe data center GPUs were always irresponsible purchases. SXM GPUs only run on special systems Noone but high end data centers can even run.
Consider that every single B300 or older equipped rack on earth is landfill in 3-5 years.
By then, the world will have overprovisioned RAM, we'll have moved 2-3 generations of cooling forward, we'll have designed denser racks, started employing all the awesome tech China built to work around lack of EUV... No really, Korean companies are already licensing CXMT tech for wafer stacking. We will have moved to lower fresh water depen....
You know what? It is going to just be cheaper to bankrupt the shell corporations who own the current data centers than to upgrade them to new tech. Besides, the environmental issues will be such a mess. Imagine trying to dispose of that much fr4 epoxy without causing environmental disasters? It's probably at least as much epoxy as the total mass of the twin towers.
I can keep ranting but I promise this, there isn't a single piece of tech in the most modern AI data center on earth that is worth using in 5 years... Not even the racks. It's all garbage.
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I can keep ranting but I promise this, there isn't a single piece of tech in the most modern AI data center on earth that is worth using in 5 years... Not even the racks. It's all garbage.
I'll be honest, I'm not sure your post was coherent.
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Re:Doesn't matter, obsolete designs (Score:4, Interesting)
I can't imagine how else you were unable to follow that post.
To begin with, the poster hasn't figured out the basic concept of "topic sentence" and "supporting sentences." The poster isn't able to use simple punctuation. Factually, the poster thinks the future is Optane. Why not Niagara? Structurally the post is untied.
As for you, frankly I think you might be braindead. But don't let that stop you from posting.
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So you _did_ understand the post
No. Understanding sentences from the post is not the same as understanding the post.
I can see that he thinks these data centers are a waste, but I can't figure out why he thinks that.
you have nothing left by ad homineim
Ad hominem is an argument of the format, "You are [insult] therefore you are wrong." I didn't say the poster was wrong, I just I couldn't understand his post.
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It's certainly possible [futurism.com]. I'll go out on a limb and insult both of you by saying one of you could have long-form reading comprehension skill deficits, and the other could know his/her audience better.
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To sum up, I broadly agree that one way or the other, much more sane and modest equipment will supersede the absurd designs of the bleeding edge high end GPU designs as they exist today. Beyond the facets you mention, they are fickle beasts to get working right with how they are designed hardware wise.
The push for concentrating in datacenters will continue, because there's much more money to be had to hold any facet of compute hostage for subscription revenue. See Microsoft Office, no need for that to be s
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Transformers will leave the data center between 2030-2032 as it will never make sense to run transformer inference in racks. It's at least 1000x less green than local inference.
There is no universe in which this is true. Inference is bandwidth limited and local inference can't compete with batch mode exploitation of SRAM at scale. I hope inference is decentralized for political reasons yet the efficiency argument is nonsense.
Things like Intel's dead Optane product will become the future of datacenters. Google Search, Microsoft Bing, maybe Baidu are the best positioned companies for what comes next and they don't need 100KW per rack to deliver. If I were to enter this segment, I would pair a customized KLV object query engine onto a 1024 bit wide ecc memory bus and connect it with low cost networking (think Intel's Ethernet fabric tech). Then add a super capacitor to flush to flash on power loss... Or just hope Optane comes back. Superfast, massive, token based vector databases are the future of cloud LLM
This is gibberish.
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No way man. Datacentre FLOPs are shit compared to artisanal home made FLOPs.
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That said, separating inference from data drops network depth consid
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Better question (Score:4, Insightful)
Are americans so dense they can't think for (Score:2)
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It's not their fault. They've been immersed in propaganda since at least WWII, and somehow failed to develop the cynicism of your average eastern European.
Charity? (Score:2)
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Compare that to Europe, where they are just calmly waiting.
International Data Centre Rage Too! (Score:2)
Our unique added value (Score:2)
LAUNCHING AN ONLINE COMMUNICATIONS CAMPAIGN
TO INFORM, DEBUNK, AND COMBAT STATE-SPONSORED PROPAGANDA
Comprehensive action proposal
Strictly confidential
Our unique added value
“We operate as an international newsroom. Last month alone, we published more than 1,000 articles, briefs, or opinion pieces online. Since 2011, we have built a wide network of hundreds of third-party experts, and the capacity to publish on several hundred high-quality, independent news, o
No (Score:2)
Never been cheaper (Score:2)
It has absolutely never been easier and cheaper to flood an entire country with propaganda than today - in the past you at least needed to print and drop paper or setup a radio station and smuggle in receivers.
Nowadays you got the cheapest and most direct data pipelines into the subconscious of the entire Western hemisphere if you want to harm the cultural West.
And you got self-hating people in those countries acting as huge amplifiers.
If China, NorthKorea, Iran and RuSSia were not using the opportunity on
They might be contributing... (Score:2)
While they may be contributing, I frankly think that would be a bad strategy if they had a good finger on the pulse of public sentiment here. Folks don't need convincing and are frustrated all by themselves.
On the flip side, Musk's social network announcing they are rooting out sentiment that gets in the way of Musk's ambitions and declares it to be foreign interference? Well, since there's no conflict of interest at all there, seems legit.
We do know that the companies are out talking to members of town c
Yes, They Are (Score:3)
China is definitely running psyops such as this against America. And the drooling morons are lapping it up as usual.
But, there's enough truth to the downsides of AI data centers that it's easy to rile people up and their beefs are not wrong.
They do not need to (Score:2)
Enough people just have enough of this crap. The Chinese can stand back, watch and enjoy the show.
Hell, I'll generalize that statement (Score:2)
"If you're a [venture capitalist] in Atherton or Menlo Park opining about how somebody in Ohio should feel, and you've never been to Ohio, that's a problem."
How about, "If you're a venture capitalist or in Silicon Valley opining how someone should feel, that's a problem." Hell, do they even know how *they* feel?
right - then we have corporate bots astroturfing (Score:2)
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So the solution is... more money? If $5000 a year for a median Chinese person gets as much as $63000 a year in America, who is really ahead? By your logic quantitative easing has made America massively wealthy through inflation. High income and high prices don't necessarily mean someone is rich. And the opposite doesn't mean they are "poor."
If we all must be renters to motivate us to work, that is a pretty bleak future for America.
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If $5000 a year for a median Chinese person gets as much as $63000 a year in America, who is really ahead?
Where did you get this idea? Median Chinese income is ~$5k in nominal USD, but that only equates to ~$10k after factoring in purchasing power parity (PPP). That is still about 15% of the purchasing power of a US worker.
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And where did you get your numbers from?
What does a Chinese have, you don't have?
- healthcare
- an EV
- fibre internet
- G5 and soon G6 phone
- uninterrupted power
- cheap food
- mostly free education
- cheap housing
- cheap clothing
And so on.
No idea what kind of "purchasing power parity" you want to factor in when objectively a random Chinese has a higher standard of living than a random USian?
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Actually they have.
However they have not the right to attack the position of the party from outside of the party.
Might sound strange for you, but point is: if you want to do "politics" you are supposed to join the party. And do it from inside the party.
Being a lazy fellow, not joining the party, not raising your voice where it is welcome: makes you an unpleasant fellow.
Actually a simple concept, which makes from their point of view perfectly sense.
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You are conflating two separate issues. If and probably when China does surpase the US economy, that won't mean individual Chinese citizens are better off than US citizens. It will simply mean the country as a whole is outcompeting the US, mostly because of its size.
And when it comes to engineering, the PPP salaries of US and Chinese engineers isn't that different. Chinese engineers make around $100k annually in comparable purchasing power, which is only about 25% less than a US engineer and about the same
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You get some simple things wrong.
An US engineer has not 25% more purchasing power, when everything he wishes to purchase: has a 375% tariff.
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Having more computer means being more powerful. Just ask the Ukrainians in their front line drone war that holds Russia back.
That's not having more computer, that's having more computers. DCs are concentrations of power, it doesn't matter how many computers are in them really but we have to organize the logic into many computers because otherwise interconnection becomes unmanageably expensive. Drones inherently depend on many distributed computers, but none of them have to be very powerful. The more processing power you have the more fancy tricks they can do, but drones are inevitably energy-limited and therefore have limited loi