As negative sentiment toward data center construction reaches a fever pitch, some AI advocates are blaming China for emerging narratives around the rapid growth of the technology’s infrastructure—and the increased negative public attitude surrounding it.
One of the people blaming China is billionaire investor Kevin O’Leary, who is backing a $100 billion data center project in Utah. Last month, the Shark Tank investor said he received an influx of “tens of thousands” of Instagram and X comments from the same batch of IP addresses, as well as “nefarious accounts from out of the country.” Additionally, some of the accounts, he claimed, were connected with Neville Roy Singham, a left-wing activist with alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party. O’Leary claimed he reviewed public IRS tax filings that indicate Singham’s Shanghai-based connections funded anti-data-center organizations like Alliance for a Better Utah and Arabella Advisors.
