Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) said Saturday that China and Russia are actively working to turn American public opinion against artificial intelligence and the data centers that power it, citing a stark gap in how the two countries view the technology compared to the United States.
Speaking with Breitbart News’s Washington bureau chief Matthew Boyle on Breitbart News Saturday, McCormick said polling shows AI and data centers are roughly 80-20 popular in China, while the numbers run the opposite direction in America.
“The reason it’s so polarized in the United States is in part because China is leading a campaign along with Russia to turn people against AI and data centers here,” McCormick said. “AI and data centers are 80-20 popular versus unpopular in China.” It’s the reverse here in America. “That’s not by accident. It’s because the Chinese are shaping the dialogue, and it’s because these big tech firms did a bad job early on in rolling out these data centers.”
McCormick argued the stakes go well beyond public opinion polls. Falling behind China in AI, he said, would hand Beijing a military and economic edge and let it “set the rules for the world.”
To keep the U.S. ahead, McCormick pitched a “FINRA-like” oversight structure for AI — an industry-run rulebook and enforcement system operating under federal guidance, rather than heavy-handed government control.
On where data centers get built, McCormick said that decision shouldn’t come from senators in Washington. He pointed to agreements struck in Pennsylvania towns including Bloomsburg and Homer City, which he said protect residents’ energy costs and water supplies while growing the local tax base and hiring local workers.
McCormick also praised Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), calling him “the best surprise I’ve had since joining the Senate” and noting that “his party’s trying to cancel him.” Fetterman has broken from many Democrats on AI policy, writing last month that “China continues to fuel and benefit from our overreaction.”
Bot Farms and Bandwagon Campaigns
McCormick’s comments follow an August disclosure from X, whose safety team identified a suspected Chinese bot farm of roughly 200,000 accounts. The company said about 200 of those accounts were posting content designed to “manipulate a legitimate debate about American AI and energy policy.”
That finding came on the heels of a June OpenAI report describing a network of PRC-linked accounts — dubbed the “Data Center Bandwagon” campaign — that used ChatGPT to generate posts blaming data centers for rising electricity prices.
Cale Brown, chair of Polaris National Security, told Breitbart News the pattern fits a broader strategy from Beijing.
“The CCP will leverage every tool, including American AI and American social media platforms, to divide and weaken us,” Brown said. “At the same time, they ban these same social media tools in their own country because the party’s greatest fear is of their own people.”
Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.
