The Beijing Dividend: Who Benefits from America’s Anti-AI Backlash?

On August 28, X disclosed that its Safety team identified about 200,000 suspected Chinese inauthentic accounts which were used to manipulate the debate about AI and energy policy in America. Within that broader network, X found about 200 accounts sharing messages blaming data centers for rising household electricity prices and grid pressure, including AI-generated cartoons depicting data center operators enriching themselves at the public’s expense. X did not disclose what the remaining accounts were doing. They may have included dormant or lightly active accounts being prepared for future operations.

Only two months earlier, OpenAI reported a likely People’s Republic of China origin influence operation it called “Data Center Bandwagon.” Operators prompted ChatGPT in Simplified Chinese to produce English-language posts while posing as Americans from different social and professional backgrounds. They used past reporting about electricity prices and data centers as raw material, supplemented it with cartoons and commentary, and sought to make their accounts appear authentically American. OpenAI assessed that the operators were likely associated with a private Chinese technology company working for provincial government clients within an ecosystem supporting Party-state public opinion priorities.

Meanwhile, Beijing just concluded the second World Humanoid Robot Games. More than 2,000 robots from 666 teams competed in 51 disciplines, including sports and simulated industrial work. The narrative split between the U.S. and China is hard to miss. In China, robots are part of entertainment, compete as athletes, workers, and objects of public fascination, while in the U.S., suspected Chinese accounts present the infrastructure behind AI as a threat to ordinary families, fueling anti-innovation sentiments among ordinary citizens.

This is exactly what members of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee were concerned about in June this year, when they asked the FBI and White House advisers in their letter to brief lawmakers on alleged propaganda campaigns by foreign adversaries, specifically China, Russia, and Iran, aimed at hindering U.S. AI development and data center expansion.

We saw some early implications of anti-AI sentiment on American college and university campuses. During the 2026 commencement season, graduates booed remarks praising technology and AI at the University of Arizona, the University of Central Florida, and Middle Tennessee State University. Although students’ reactions reflected worries about their future employment, the attitude is revealing regarding the broader American population as well. The 2026 Ipsos AI Monitor reports that 38 percent of American respondents said AI products and services offered more benefits than drawbacks, while 85 percent of Chinese respondents reacted positively to the same question.

The worries are also shifting certain states’ policies on data centers, with 15 states considering banning such developments. On the federal level, Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, introduced the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act earlier this year, aiming to “slow down the development of AI to give democracy a chance to catch up.” To support the cause, Mr. Sanders hosted a forum called “The Existential Threat of AI and the Need for International Cooperation.” The event featured prominent Chinese experts, namely Xue Lan of Tsinghua University, a key institute of China’s advanced technology ecosystem, and Zeng Yi of the Beijing Institute for AI Safety and Governance, to emphasize the consequences of uncontrolled AI races and insufficient international collaboration. What’s in it for them? The question is poetic.

The once-upon-a-time innovative, entrepreneurial, and free-market-oriented nation is now struggling with tech anxiety and a degrowth mindset. Both of those are alien to the American culture. At precisely this moment, America needs to compete with one of the world’s most technologically optimistic societies, China. Indeed, according to Gallup while 51 percent of Gen Z Americans use generative AI at least weekly, only 22 percent feel excited about it, and 31 percent feel angry about it. A nationwide survey of more than 3,000 university students by the China Youth Daily found that 99.2 percent were already using AI, 65.9 percent instinctively turned to AI first when encountering a problem, and nearly half said they had become unable to do without it. More importantly, 62.3 percent planned to study AI further so they could make it a tool of their own.

China is encouraging young people to encounter AI; moreover, it is building an AI literacy system designed to teach them how to use it. This is active support for societal adoption of the AI age. The earlier-mentioned Humanoid Robot Games, for example, turned unfamiliar technology into entertainment and a showcase of national achievement. Robots raced and performed practical tasks before spectators. This was not merely a grotesque modern panem et circenses, bread and circuses for the AI age, but also a laboratory and trade show for the population to make them feel technologically confident. Robots are presented as evidence that the future is built by and in China, instead of being presented as machines coming for someone’s job. 

Of course, some concerns around AI and data centers are legitimate. It is a factual issue that data centers consume large amounts of electricity. It is also true that communities deserve transparent forecasts on power usage and policies that avoid the costs of data center infrastructure being placed on households. In addition, students are right to ask what dependence on generative AI could do to learning and how it effects their opportunities on the job market. But the answer to these concerns is dialogue and better policies, not bans on AI or moratoriums on data centers, or broader technological paralysis leading to degrowth. Simply put, the policy question is how to build AI infrastructure responsibly, not whether to build it at all.

That is the Beijing dividend. At home, China is turning AI into prosperity. In the U.S., China-linked operators attempt to bombard Americans with tech anxiety, causing political and social resistance to innovation. This strategic asymmetry is unmistakable. Beijing wants to win the tech race. For this, it only needs Americans to hesitate. Thus, the AI contest will be decided by which society retains the confidence to experiment and build—not by who invents the best model or builds the fastest robot. Beijing seems to understand that. America should too.