A group of Republican lawmakers is demanding that the FBI investigate whether rising anti-AI sentiment among the American public is a foreign-influence operation led by China.
“The Committee on Energy and Commerce writes to express our concerns regarding evidence that strongly suggests foreign influence campaigns targeting artificial intelligence development in the U.S.,” the lawmakers wrote in an open letter addressed to FBI Director Kash Patel and Trump’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology co-chairs David Sacks and Michael Kratsios, requesting a briefing no later than June 18, 2026.
In the letter, Kentucky Rep. Brett Guthrie, Pennsylvania Rep. John Joyce, and Ohio Rep. Bob Latta cite independent investigations that have allegedly found foreign adversaries, particularly China, “engaged in a coordinated effort to slow U.S. growth in AI development and the building of infrastructure supporting AI data centers.” The investigations were run by a think tank called the Bitcoin Policy Institute and an energy advocacy organization called Power the Future, whose self-described purpose is to fight pro-environment groups.
The Bitcoin Policy Institute’s cited report also claims that Sen. Bernie Sanders, who calls for a moratorium on AI data centers, is in on this Chinese influence campaign because he hosted a panel earlier this year on “the existential threat of AI” featuring two professors from China, both of whom are leading figures in their fields.
The United States has been in the midst of an unprecedented AI infrastructure buildout that, since its inception and even more so after Trump’s executive order on AI, has been framed as a national security imperative. The argument, often touted by the AI industry itself as it vies for looser regulation, is that the United States is in a new age space race, this time towards building artificial superintelligence. The adversary now is China, whose AI industry is the biggest competitor to American Big Tech. Washington worries that if China reaches this long-imagined, highly advanced form of AI before the United States, Beijing could use the technology for military purposes. Though the United States and China are not in direct military conflict, tensions are high, particularly over territorial claims in Taiwan.
“America needs to be the most aggressive in adopting AI technology of any country in the world, bar none, and that is an imperative,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told a crowd of Washington lawmakers late last year. “We have to encourage every single company, every single student, to use AI.”
But things didn’t pan out as Huang and much of the rest of the AI industry intended. Over the past year, AI’s reputation has dramatically soured as the technology’s impact on mental health, the job market, and the environment gained recognition. Much of that backlash has manifested in local outrage over data center projects, with critics arguing that the massive facilities drive up utility prices, strain water supplies, and worsen noise and air pollution.
One major example is unfolding in Utah, where residents have been pushing back against a planned 40,000-acre data center projected to be one of the largest in the world. The owner of that project, Canadian millionaire Kevin O’Leary of “Shark Tank” and “Marty Supreme” fame, has claimed that local opposition to his project, which is set to consume more than twice the energy consumed by the entire state of Utah, has been driven by foreign influence campaigns run by the Chinese Communist Party.
On Thursday, O’Leary partially caved to demands from local activists and Utah Governor Spencer Cox, saying he would shrink the proposed data center project by 75%.
