There is an increased public discussion about the race to build datacenters in the USA that are part of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) race for superiority. There are multiple facets within the discussion and some things to consider that might not be at the forefront, yet.
Overall, there is a global race to build the best AI system that is not dissimilar to the nuclear arms race. Arguably the use of AI as a weapon is one possibility; while the second aspect surrounds strategic economic power.
The USA is poised very favorably in this AI race due to the advanced tech industry in America and recent national security moves made by President Trump in the tech sector surrounding strategic critical minerals and domestic chip production. However, no one is quite sure where China is in their AI development and last year’s explosive revelation around China’s “Deepseek” model shocked the U.S. tech industry due to its advanced intelligence prowess.
With China and the USA both in this AI race, and the need for massive investment in datacenters to do the processing needed for an artificial intelligence brain of such significant capacity, there is a sense of urgency in the tech industry that is surfacing around the country. Simultaneously, with datacenters becoming more controversial, suddenly the geopolitical intelligence operations enter the picture.
Currently, it is well accepted inside the tech industry that part of China’s strategy against the USA in this AI race is to slow down American system development. As a consequence, it is beginning to surface that Beijing may be funding voices inside the USA to rally against the building of datacenters. Essentially, China funding voices, real or artificially boosted influence operations, to amplify domestic opposition to the datacenters.
Anytime the intelligence operations become part of a domestic issue that has national security implications, things get opaque, cloudy and muddy pretty quick. Is datacenter opposition organic – actual citizens and communities pushing back against the development in their towns and/or cities or is the opposition to the datacenters a form of foreign influence operation?
These questions become challenging to answer, and discernment becomes very critical. The truth might even be a combination depending on the localized opposition and/or regional importance. One thing is very clear, building the world’s leading AI system is being rushed with an urgency similar to atomic bomb development.
Here’s a great example of that type of question.
Today Gallup released a poll showing 72 percent of Americans are opposed to building AI datacenters in their area. [POLLING HERE]
The topline sounds pretty straightforward right? 7 in 10 Americans oppose “the construction of a data center in their area to support artificial intelligence technology.” That’s the polled result. Indeed, this poll is being cited in numerous media articles now emphasizing opposition to the datacenters.
However, put on your discernment cap and look at it closely. Notice the date of the poll, “March 2-18, 2026.” Why did Gallup wait two months to release the results of a poll on May 13, 2026?
Did the date of release today have something to do with the timing of President Trump taking a list of key U.S. tech and finance leaders to Beijing to confront China on exactly this AI issue? …. Or was it coincidental?
This is where you have to make up your own mind as to whether this Gallup poll is an organic outcome, an organically timed release, on an issue that just happens to be at the heart of the geopolitical negotiations currently underway in Beijing between the USA and China. Or was there some kind of influence operation around it?
I really don’t know the answer, but I’m well aware of how the influence game is played once various intelligence operations identify something as critically important. Who funded this Gallup poll? Why did they wait to release it?
At the same time this battle to win the AI race is underway, there is a psychological battle to influence the outcome. China plays this game very well and they know how to draw on emotional influence operations; that’s why Beijing spends so much time, money and human capital on North America.
Again, opposition to datacenter development can be entirely organic, justified and righteous. Simultaneously, the information around opposition to datacenters can be amplified, enhanced or become part of an influence operation to win a battle. The truth can also be a mix of both, but discovering the truth first begins with an admission of the possibility and a decision to put emotion away and think logically about the controversy.
I’m no fan of Elon Musk, but he said something in/around this issue that is very thoughtful and well presented:
Musk: “After World War 2, the US could have basically taken over the world and any country. Like we got nukes, nobody else got nukes. We don’t even have to lose soldiers. Which country do you want?”
One nation on earth held a weapon nobody else had.
Total dominance. Zero competition. No risk of retaliation.
Every empire in history that held that kind of advantage used it.
Rome. The Mongols. The British. The Ottomans.
They conquered until they collapsed.
America had a bigger advantage than all of them combined.
And it rebuilt the countries it just defeated.
Musk: “The United States actually helped rebuild countries. So it helped rebuild Europe, it helped rebuild Japan. This is very unusual behavior, almost unprecedented.”
Almost unprecedented?
It had never happened before. Not once in 5,000 years of recorded history.
The Marshall Plan wasn’t foreign aid.
It was the most radical act of restraint any superpower ever committed.
America turned its enemies into allies. Turned rubble into economies. Turned surrender into partnership.
Germany went from ashes to the economic engine of Europe in a generation.
Japan went from unconditional surrender to the third largest economy on earth.
Three years after the war, America was flying food into Berlin.
A city in the heart of the nation that just tried to destroy it.
That’s not policy.
That’s a civilization deciding what it is at the exact moment it has the power to be anything.
You’re being told a story right now.
That America is the villain of history.
You hear it everywhere. Media. Universities. Social platforms.
Musk: “There’s always like, well America’s done bad things. Well of course America’s done bad things, but one needs to look at the whole track record.”
Every nation on earth has dark chapters. Every single one.
The difference is what a country does when nobody can stop it.
And when nobody could stop America, it fed its enemies and rebuilt their cities.
Musk: “The history of China suggests that China is not acquisitive. Meaning they’re not going to go out and invade a whole bunch of countries.”
Probably right.
China has historically built walls, not fleets.
But the real question isn’t about borders anymore.
We’re approaching a moment that mirrors 1945 in ways nobody has fully processed yet.
AI is going to give a handful of people a power advantage that makes nuclear monopoly look quaint.
If someone is going to hold that kind of power, who do you want it to be?
The country that conquered when it could? Or the one that rebuilt when it didn’t have to?
Every alliance. Every trade route. Every economy.
Billions lifted out of poverty.
All of it traces back to one act of restraint that had never been done before.
And carries no guarantee of being repeated.
The most powerful thing America ever did wasn’t building the bomb.
It was what it didn’t do after. {source}
Artificial Intelligence (AI) development, winning the AI race, has been identified as the #1 national security issue of the next few years. The winner in this digital war could turn off the lights, pollute the water, hack elections, empty your bank account, control communication systems and generally create nationwide chaos without ever firing a kinetic missile.
AI is both an offensive weapon and a defensive weapon guarding against AI attacks.
Within the race and setting aside that technocrats will reap billions from it regardless of outcome, the regional AI datacenters are likely to be a political issue. Think about 2028. AI and the development of these datacenters could be a very divisive topic.
How do you feel about it?
They Don’t Have the Power: Utilities Expert Debunks the AI Data Center Myth
I get it but I do think there needs to be a fair and reasonable process to building them. They obviously take a lot of power and water which if they or th government pay for the infrastructure and do it in a respectful way of the local community and environment, then fair enough. But I don’t trust Google and other major players, or the government to not put it on the backs of ordinary people. In that case, of course it’s the government telling us they know what’s best for us.. as if that always works out. I also don’t trust the use of ai, we know they will surveil us and build huge database, which will most likely lead to the social credit scores. Again, I understand the need to build out the infrastructure, but I don’t have a good feeling of how it will be used and who will pay and who will benefit vs who will lose.
I oppose, and china has not paid me to say that.
I’ve said what musk said for decades…
USA didn’t keep any “conquered land” after the first world war or the Second World War.
It is unprecedented.
My objection to data centers is what they are being used for – collecting everyones data.
The computer servers need hardware infrastructure for large language model growth along with applications deployed in cloud server farms – tech stacks / internet pipes
Same. Furthermore, my view pretty much aligns with that of Anonymous Conservative, whose blog most browsers and antivirus suites won’t even allow you to look at, and who I’ve been reading for years, second only to Sundance and “you people” 😉.
These are a tool and, as SD said, it matters who wields it.
The unaccountable, above all laws deep state surveillance cult wields it.
Therefore I oppose it.
Many of you today might not have been around to see it, but the last Software Industry SCAM was called: “Y2K.”
I was careful to run around bookstores at the time, buying copies of the “Y2K doom” books and magazines which were very-confidently telling the entire world that “data processing would completely melt down, precisely at midnight,” on 1/1/2000.
The rationale was basically: “two-digit years.”
Apparently, no one at the time ever looked at their mortgage statement, which continued to require monthly payments well into “the 21st (gasp!) century.” (Look at your mortgage coupon-book … what does it say?)
These were difficult times for me, as an honest data-processing consultant who refused to take advantage of my customers’ fears.
I even worked, for a time, with a “dot-bomb” company who staked its IPO on “COBOL” and proclaiming loudly that they had “solved the Year 2000 problem.” Believe it or not, their stock issue survived for almost nine months.
Most systems were immune if using some sort of ERP
The homegrown systems at business were at risk but yea there were exploits
The worry was payroll systems / hr systems
The local level democommies are the voices. Community organizers under plight of persecution of “our space”. Albeit it maybe a desolate non populated area under consideration. Start with removing all communists
This is timely.
There is a very contentious thing going on in our smallish suburb.
Without getting into it all, it appeared to be all about the 15 minute city thing.
And it is, on the surface. Underneath it is setting this community up for expanded data centers.
What is fricking scary is not the need for data centers or AI, although that is there, it is the subversive nature of local government and how they are going about it. A very contentious local election pitting neighbors against neighbors so the details are hidden (worse case) or just very difficult to find.
I love when the city government types ask why they’ve lost the trust of the residents. Maybe they should ask AI.
Data centers are a major issue in our North TX community. Two main concerns are water usage and the additional strain on the electrical grid. There needs to be discussion about locating these centers in coastal areas of the U.S. The water for cooling could be piped to the site and returned to the source in a looped system. If they are developed using on-site electricity generation, both concerns would be addressed! Movement of information, of course, would be instantaneous. COMMENTS?
The data centers I know about in TX are having to pay to have natural gas brought in to run the generators to make their electricity. They also utilize closed loop cooling.
I’m not claiming they all necessarily do, just the ones I am familiar with
I live in the heart of the Northern Virginia data center explosion. There are concerns of drawing too much water from the Potomac River, not to mention the rise in residential electric bills.
This article points out the boon to Loudoun County that has allowed it to lower residential real estate taxes.
https://www.city-journal.org/article/loudoun-county-virginia-data-centers-construction
As to AI technology–most all top AI experts believe it will kill us eventually–LITERALLY kill us!
Look at what AI agents are already doing with no oversight (see link).
https://x.com/lifeof_jer/status/2048103471019434248
Ties right in with all this push for technology and zero regard for our heath and human life.
https://open.substack.com/pub/jonfleetwood/p/6g-dominance-bill-introduced-despite?r=b7nwz&utm_medium=ios
One county over from me they had an overflow crowd fight the county government over building one. They want to build it in the middle of farming country where water is at a premium. There data centers require enormous amount of water to cool them. The farmers are fighting it tooth and nail
I lived in Ashburn, VA from 2006-2023. Ground Zero for data center construction. At first, I was all for it b/c this meant less available land for the builders to build high density homes, and create traffic nightmares. And guess what, it worked. They don’t employee many people, especially considering how large they are (footprint).
Now, I see the plague they present. Higher energy costs for those living near them, and of course, the larger IC surveillance issue.
They took out Dominion Brewery after A-B bought them out and closed shop.
Good Lord, I am so happy that I am an old man.
“Is datacenter opposition organic – actual citizens and communities pushing back against the development in their towns and/or cities or is the opposition to the datacenters a form of foreign influence operation?”
It’s organic and I find the implication that it was coerced by foreign entity absurd. In the same vein, has our government ever done anything that causes concern and suspicion? You betcha! The demons are on both sides of the political aisle in this country. Give me one example (just ONE) of something the government has controlled that hasn’t turned into an utter sh!t show at an outrageous cost to the American taxpayer.
I’m with Catherine Austin Fitts on this one. I think it’s an essential part of the control grid, and will be used to crush our freedom.
I’ve heard the charge that the data centers use a lot of water. Many different company data centers or modest sized computer rooms I’ve seen use closed loop chiller technology. I would think just scale up the size of those cooling systems. I think the system room I’m currently in occasionally, use’s glycol in the closed loop. Maybe the “AI center’s use a lot of water” complaint is bunk.
I’ve heard the charge that the data centers use a lot of water. Maney different company data centers or modest sized computer rooms I’ve seen use closed loop chiller technology. I would think just scale up the size of those cooling systems. I think the system room I’m currently in occasionally, use’s glycol in the closed loop. Maybe the “AI center’s use a lot of water” complaint is bunk.
Living in NC, Dook Energy frequently says it does not have enough power to supply the current customers when slightly out of the norm weather occurs. A hot or cold spell sends panic warnings about rolling black or brown outs because there is not enough power available.
I am for someone to say no more building permits until there is sufficient utility reserve to handle current power demands and any proposed expansion, residential or industrial. Industrial plants can supply their own power if needed, but with 35,000 people moving into Charlotte and Raleigh per year (it may be greater) and no new power plants on the books, data centers will eat too much demand available for current customers.