AI represents the next theater of great power competition. It will underpin the future of war planning, intelligence gathering, cybersecurity, and autonomous weapons systems, to say nothing of its role in domestic production and economic growth.

Because American policy is the product of an open and federated system, there is a clear temptation for rival powers to use our democracy to undermine our vital infrastructure, with local approval processes being particularly vulnerable to foreign influence.

In March, Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY), Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, made a chilling observation:

“If you're China, what would you want to do to keep Americans from building data centers, how do you do that? You use our system of free press and freedom of information to influence people.”

Guthrie’s fears are well-founded and consistent with the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies. In 2022, the National Counterintelligence and Security Center warned that Chinese influence operations often seek to exploit “state and local entities” to “pursue agendas that might be more challenging at the national level.”

Computing infrastructure supports national competitiveness, but it operates within specific locales, making its construction a prime target for Beijing-led influence operations. Infrastructure projects in general have faced political obstruction linked to China.

A report from the Department of Homeland Security noted that a 2022 Chinese influence campaign sought “to denigrate the reputation of Australian and U.S. rare earth mining companies who had recently announced plans for rare earth mining and processing facilities in the United States.” The campaign aimed to “incite protest” against the mining operations by pushing narratives about their supposed “environmental and health risks.”

Like AI, rare earth minerals have important industrial and military applications. You can see in this example the outline of China’s influence playbook for infrastructure battles: target an economic or national security input and rally domestic opposition to slow its production.

Much has been made of Bernie Sanders’ public appearance with such figures as the dean of the Beijing Institute of AI Safety and Governance. This is absolutely disturbing and worthy of scrutiny, but it isn’t the only — or even necessarily the most powerful — potential vector of Chinese influence on American AI policy.

While most Americans aren’t getting their news from Chinese state media outlets, the framing they choose does hint at how Chinese elites understand the attitudes of American voters and the workings of the American political system.

One headline in China Daily reads, “AI boom sends electricity bills in US skyrocketing.”

An article in the South China Morning Post suggests that AI’s “demand for power and water is putting serious strain on many communities across the US,” as does a CGTN piece that argues, “AI’s immense infrastructure needs also threaten to overburden electricity providers.”

Predictably, when Chinese authors cover AI and computing infrastructure in China, they take a different tone, focusing on economic growth, the supposed environmental friendliness of Chinese data center projects, and the favorable economics of Chinese energy production.

The local infrastructure angle is especially potent given China’s strategy of meddling in policymaking at the subnational level, as well as the greater number of veto points between policy formulation and implementation than found federally.

A national policy designed to enhance American competitiveness needs an act of Congress and the president’s signature. A local project, such as the construction of a hyperscaler, may need buy-in from federal and state agencies, agreements with the relevant utilities, and approval from one or more local boards. Process complexity begets political vulnerability as even a single box left unchecked can derail the soundest of plans.

Additionally, debates about local environmental impacts and resource consumption, however important, decenter other public interests, such as national defense and the broader economic climate. Local infrastructure battles have a way of burying general gains under targeted costs, which are often exaggerated to begin with.

These aspects of the American system, as well as China’s track record of conducting highly localized influence operations, suggest that Beijing-led efforts to kill American AI progress won’t rely mainly on Less Wrong-style safety advocacy. Instead, they’ll leverage more pedestrian (and understandable) concerns about people’s backyards and light bills.

Energy Foundation China is a major conduit between the American and Chinese philanthropic ecosystems. According to a report by State Armor, EFC has troubling ties with the Chinese Communist Party, with one board member, Hongjun Zhang, having previously served as legislative director to the National People’s Congress.

Zou Ji, CEO of EFC, is reported to have worked for China’s National Center for Climate Change Strategy and to have attended the 2015 Paris Climate Talks as one of the country’s representatives.

While Energy Foundation China and its U.S. branch became formally separate entities in 2019, they reportedly continued to share office space until 2022 and some staff until 2024.

The group and its ties with American non-profits have attracted scrutiny from independent watchdogs, state officials, and even Congress.

A letter to the Justice Department from 26 state attorneys general claimed there was “substantial evidence” Energy Foundation China had operated as an unregistered agent for “foreign principals.”

According to a Pelican Institute report, the environmental group EarthJustice shares a board chair with Energy Foundation and has received millions of dollars in funding from EF and its China-focused counterpart.

The Pelican Institute notes EarthJustice “has also been accused of funneling millions to U.S.-based organizations to advance Chinese energy policies,” by “funding climate lawfare aimed at weakening the United States.”

EarthJustice boasts on its official website that it sued xAI earlier this year to shut down the natural gas turbines in Mississippi powering its data center operations in the region. Another page repeats familiar tropes about computing infrastructure, saying, “the speculative buildout of data centers raises electricity rates, increases pollution, and undermines clean energy and climate goals.”

Similarly, the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has also received funding from Energy Foundation and Energy Foundation China, filed a petition earlier this year to slow down an agreement for DTE Electric to provide electricity to a Michigan data center planned by OpenAI and Oracle.

The utility has made a firm commitment that consumers will not see rate increases on the back of the project, which is guaranteed under the terms of the agreement, though a press release by the NRDC and its partners also cited concerns about “clean energy needs” and “fossil fuel dependence.”

None of this is to allege direct coordination between American data center opponents and the Chinese state, just to highlight the nodes in international philanthropic networks that could be weaponized by CCP-aligned actors against American progress in AI. Such weaponization has long been suspected, with some basis, and vigilance requires specificity.

Eliezer Yudkosky is probably a sincere guy, albeit badly misguided. Many of the people who take the time to attend protests and city council meetings are genuinely worried about how computing infrastructure will impact their communities and utility rates.

The real threats to American AI dominance are structural. They include a superabundance of veto points between plans and projects, misinformation that’s gone unchallenged, and our competitive dynamics with adversaries who are known to fight dirty and would be irresponsible not to.

For better or worse, artificial intelligence is the force likeliest to produce a unipolar world governed by one hegemonic civilization. Our actions today will determine whether that civilization will be American.