- Foreign money has long supported U.S. environmental organizations, including several seeking a nationwide on new data center construction.
- Chinese state media have promoted anti-data center messaging while they and the U.S. race to dominate artificial intelligence.
- Public opposition to data centers stems from concerns about AI and environmental impacts, but experts say foreign actors may be amplifying those fears.
A year ago, the words “data center” rarely worked themselves into conventional conversation; now they’re a political flashpoint.
They’ve become a popular topic of conversation in Facebook groups, with one person describing them as “most dangerous thing EVER built in this country.” The post received more than 1,400 likes and was shared more than a thousand times.
But data centers are not new. They’ve been around for decades, and in 2026, the average American would find himself challenged to go a day without using the technology.
For those who invest in and understand data centers, the backlash seems sudden and bizarre. An explanation some, including investor Kevin O’Leary, have offered for the sudden dislike of data centers is that foreign actors are somehow tipping the scales by channeling money into groups that oppose their construction.
This claim is enormously difficult to verify, due to donation-reporting loopholes, layered financial structures, shell companies and straw donors, all of which disconnect the giver from their money.
With this difficulty, questions remain as to the extent foreign entities are influencing anti-data center sentiment.
However, two aspects of foreign influence undeniably exist. First, countries like China are incentivized to tip the U.S. away from developing artificial intelligence. Second, Europeans have been financially involved with American environmental groups for decades, and some of these groups have launched anti-data center campaigns.
Here’s what we do and don’t know about foreign influence in the data center debate.
European billionaires fund organizations that are anti-data center
Last December, more than 200 U.S.-based environmental groups sent a letter to Congress, asking for a national moratorium on the construction of new data centers. The letter described the infrastructure as one of the “biggest environmental and social threats of our generation.”
Their listed worries about data centers included water use, strain on the electrical grid, accelerated climate change and impending joblessness due to AI.
Some of the U.S.-based organizations asking for a moratorium — including Americans for Financial Reform, Greenpeace USA and Extinction Rebellion PDX — receive funding from European philanthropists focused on climate change, but the phenomenon is nothing new.
For decades, wealthy Europeans like Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss and English billionaire Christopher Hohn, have pumped millions into American environmental groups, according to multiple news articles as well as reports from their foundations. However, while their donations have gone toward causes skeptical of data centers, neither Wyss nor Hohn have publicly made comments about the technology’s alleged environmental costs.
The Wyss Foundation views climate change as an “existential crisis” globally and has committed more than $1 billion to fighting it in various capacities, according to the foundation’s website. Meanwhile, Hohn’s organization, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, reports that it has donated more than $5 billion to fighting climate change and advancing social issues since 2002.
European billionaires have long given money to U.S.-based nonprofits through their foundations fighting for stricter environmental policies. Between 2014 and 2023, for example, Hohn’s foundation funneled more than $553 million into nearly 40 U.S.-based groups pushing for more severe environmental policies and progressive social issues.
In the case of the Hohn-funded Extinction Rebellion PDX, which signed the letter to Congress asking for a data center moratorium, the nonprofit has been actively campaigning against data centers.
Similarly, the Wyss-funded Greenpeace USA has taken stances against data centers over concerns that their construction will lead to the development of more oil and gas facilities.
The Wyss Foundation said in a statement that its grants do not directly oppose data centers; however some of the environmental groups it and Hohn’s organization support increasingly fold the data center issue into their broader climate and conservation agendas.
China has incentives to turn Americans against data centers
The U.S. and China are currently in a race to lead the development of artificial intelligence, and the stakes are high.
Whoever wins the AI race will “essentially control the information layer of the global economy,” Sam Lyman of the Bitcoin Policy Institute told the Deseret News.
“That’s why it’s so critical that America wins, because America wants to build its AI based on the principle of freedom of expression, whereas China is actively building its AI on censorship,” he said.
Lyman predicted that China is incentivized to win the AI race “not only because they see it as an opportunity to surpass us economically, but they see it essentially as a generational opportunity to push Chinese propaganda abroad and curry favor with the CCP regime among other countries.”
CCP-owned networks — China Daily, the Global Times and the China Global Television Network — have notably pushed out anti-data center content.
“They’ll push those stories out through English-language social media channels, then, whether this is coordinated explicitly or organically, it’s not quite clear, we see a network of nonprofits taking those same CCP talking points and amplifying them,” Lyman said.
For instance, on July 1, a Global Times reporter read statements from Fox News, in which they apologized for claiming that opposition to Utah’s Box Elder County data center was funded by China. “The businessman O’Leary has been pushing forward a massive data center project in Utah, which has drawn strong opposition from local residents and environmental groups over its enormous energy consumption and environmental impact,” reporter Niu Yingbo said.
China is not alone in pushing out content about American data centers. In the first six months of 2026, Chinese, Russian and Iranian state-run news sites mentioned data centers roughly 700 times, according to Alethea, a cybersecurity company.
Beyond the messaging battle and model development, the AI race is also about integration.
Neil Chilson, the head of AI policy at the Abundance Institute, told the Deseret News he was less concerned about China outcompeting the U.S. in terms of AI innovation.
“We do have the best models in the world, and I think we will probably continue to have those,” Chilson said. “China is running a sort of different race in some ways. They’re racing to get this technology implemented across their economy.”
He added, “I do worry a little bit about us not focusing enough on getting AI actually built into things that help solve people’s problems. We will do it over time, but if China is faster at it, they will gain enormous economic growth and maybe other benefits, including a much larger share of the global market.”
Any foreign influence may simply amplify Americans’ existing fears
Widespread anxiety about data centers is a step deeper than environmental concerns, Steve DelBianco, the president and CEO of NetChoice, told the Deseret News. “The driver is anxiety about AI,” he said.
In several conversations about the approved data center in Box Elder County, Utah, state residents said their deepest concerns about the project stem from artificial intelligence itself.
Rhonda Lauritzen, a northern Utah resident who grew up near the Stratos Project site, told the Deseret News, “People are worried about the project wrecking the environment just so that artificial intelligence can take everybody’s jobs.”
“Like, that’s affecting your kids. It’s making a place where our kids can’t afford to live, it’s hurting their quality of life, and now they’re not going to have jobs,” she said.
In a separate conversation about the Box Elder County data center, Springville, Utah, resident Matty Schmitz told the Deseret News, “I don’t really see the point in data centers if they’re just running AI. Why do we need this technology? Why can’t we just use our brains?”
Schmitz and Lauritzen also shared concerns about the data center’s potential environmental impacts.
DelBianco referenced these already-existing fears about AI. “Because you have anxiety, you’re vulnerable to disinformation shared on social media that confirms your fears and biases,” he explained. “The foreign sources are amplifying — I don’t even know that they’re creating it.”
As an example, the cybersecurity group Alethea tracked Facebook accounts that posted AI-generated, anti-data center content into public groups. Alethea referenced two accounts: “Only in Montana” and “ Life in Oklahoma,“ which are based in Bangladesh. Their content was then cross-posted across other social media platforms.
Many Americans have also joined Facebook groups dedicated to opposing data centers. One called “Say NO to Data Centers” has upwards of 175,000 followers.
Foreign influence is 100% legal, but should it be?
While they can’t fund elections, it is legal in the U.S. for foreign actors to fund policy advocacy organizations. In the 1970s, Congress passed the Federal Election Campaign Act, prohibiting foreign nationals, governments, corporations and political parties from giving money directly or indirectly to any American election.
The law followed the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, which required foreigners engaged in American politics or public relations to register with the Department of Justice. However, it has long been criticized to have widely exploited loopholes.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that while foreign nationals could not make contributions to political candidates, the governing law, the Federal Elections Campaign Act, “does not bar foreign nationals from issue advocacy.”
When an American organization receives money from foreign nationals, foreign companies or foreign governments to sway political or public-interest issues, they’re required to file various forms with the IRS and the Justice Department.
“American politics, American decisions, American elections — what happens at the local, state and federal level — that really is only for Americans. We do not want foreign nationals, particularly those from an adversarial country like China, like Iran, putting the thumb on the scales of a policy that they want to see in the United States,“ Caitlin Sutherland, the executive director of Americans for Public Trust, told the Deseret News. Her organization advocates for additional limits on foreign money in issue advocacy.
She continued, “Our policy must be free from foreign interference, and it doesn’t matter what that policy is. It just really needs to be decided by U.S. citizens only.”