The Real “AI Race” Isn’t With China

If we allow the myth of an AI race with China to give Big Tech free rein on data centers, we face a more polluted, less equal world.

As Big Tech races to build water-guzzling, energy-hungry data centers for its artificial intelligence (AI), talk of an “AI race” between the United States and China has permeated public discourse. Pundits, politicians, and the media have all joined tech corporations in selling this narrative. And it’s giving license to Big Tech and their political handmaidens to ruin our communities, exploit our every action (both online and via AI-powered surveillance), and steal the wealth of human knowledge for private gain.

But the idea of an AI race between China and the U.S. isn’t grounded in reality. The researchers, companies, and governments behind Chinese and U.S. AI development are pursuing completely different goals. 

The discourse in the U.S. assumes that achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI) — computers that mimic human consciousness — would be so momentous and earth-shattering that clearly this must be the goal of anyone pursuing AI development. But that’s not the main goal of Chinese AI development. And a competition in which the competitors are running toward different finish lines isn’t a race. 

If we allow the myth of an AI race with China to give Big Tech free rein, we face a more polluted, less equal world.

A Race Doesn’t Have Two Different Finish Lines

While the U.S. is focused on artificial general intelligence (AGI)  powered by Large Language Models (LLMs), Chinese developers are focused on AI embedded in products. It’s ChatGPT versus robots.

Yes, China is developing LLMs, although largely in an open-source way as opposed to the for-profit competition in the U.S. Recent news stories report that China is “catching” the U.S. in LLM development. Indeed, the latest Chinese model outperforms leading U.S. models. But this isn’t evidence of an LLM/AGI race. Instead, it shows that without making AGI its main focus, China is capable of developing its own models almost as quickly as U.S. companies. 

More to the point, LLM development in China is incidental to the country’s real goal for AI. Its focus remains on products embedded with AI and robots. Or, as AI policy researcher Liang Zheng says, in China, “the first priority is to use it to benefit ordinary people” (debatable, but indicates the kind of AI they are pursuing). 

In the U.S., the first priority is to exploit people so that the tech oligarchs can profit. It’s chatbots all the way down.

This isn’t to argue that China is doing it “right” and the U.S. is doing it “wrong.” Either approach will lead to a future in which citizens become increasingly disempowered. In which work becomes more scarce and less lucrative for most people. And in which a handful of billionaires grow wealthier and more powerful. 

But the arguments being hauled out to support the destructive growth of hyperscale data centers are based on a fallacy. There is no need to “beat China.” China and the U.S. are racing on separate tracks, in different races, with different finish lines.

These two separate approaches also explain the mind-boggling scale of the data center invasion we currently face. The massive hyperscale data centers — recent proposals would demand up to 5 GW, enough electricity to power roughly 3.75 million U.S. households — are only “required” because the U.S. is racing toward AGI. Meanwhile, the embodied AI dominating in China does not require the same amount of computational power. 

The truth is, we don’t need hyperscale data centers to “beat China.” We aren’t racing China. We’re killing ourselves so Silicon Valley can race itself. 

How Big Tech Is Weaponizing the “AI Race” to Build Data Centers

Yet, the “AI race” story is a convenient lie for Big Tech and its political protectors. It is a neat political argument designed to insulate the industry from criticism and regulation. 

If every environmental review, every question raised by a community, every issue around water usage and electricity prices can be dismissed or lessened as “helping China,” then meaningful political debate can be silenced. Real regulation — if even possible — can be avoided. Fear becomes a substitute for policy.

At the same time, data center developers and their minions in Washington have tried to weaponize false claims about foreign ties to the anti-data center movement. Kevin O’Leary of Shark Tank fame has explicitly said that our movement is being funded by China. He has no evidence because evidence of a falsehood can’t exist. In fact, Fox News has been forced to retract its coverage of his claims. 

We understand why O’Leary and the other Tech Broligarchs don’t understand the grassroots opposition to data centers building across the country. It’s hard to spot the grassroots from the window of a private jet. But the opposition is real and organic, and no amount of disinformation and pushing the “AI race against China” scare tactic will derail the movement.

Big Tech Is Selling Us a Dystopian Future 

The myth of an AI race with China threatens to propel us into Big Tech’s vision of the future — one that’s more unequal than ever. Yes, tech leaders suggest their algorithms will cure cancer, but their real goal is and has been to increase their power and wealth at the expense of the rest of us. 

Even as American Tech Broligarchs have distanced themselves from earlier prophecies of widespread job loss, their vision of the future will see the vast majority of us out of meaningful work. We’ll be subject to living off whatever meager handouts are created in an attempt to mollify us. 

At the same time, our movement will be traced whether or not we use the electronic gadgets they sell us. Already, surveillance devices linked to AI can recognize our faces, record our license plates, and report our movements. Companies and governments can buy this data in order to track us. 

Meanwhile, “surveillance pricing” allows companies to change prices in an instant so that they can exploit our needs for their profit. Deepfake videos have already added to the rapidly decaying trust in a commonly shared world and a basic set of facts necessary for a functioning democracy. And this is but a scratch of the surface.

Even if there were an AI race, is it worth running, let alone winning, if the prize is a dystopian future of mass misery with a thin layer of super wealthy tech oligarchs at the top? 

Big Tech’s Dystopian Vision Isn’t Inevitable

But we should be clear. This dystopian vision is not the inevitable outcome of unstoppable technological “progress” as the Tech Broligarchs would have us believe. Each and every decision being made to advance AI is a political decision. And, for now, we still have the ability to determine our political future. 

Across the country, there is a growing resistance to the nightmare being shoved down our throats. Communities are coming together to fight the spread of destructive hyperscale data centers. Already in 2026, more than $130 billion-worth of proposed data center projects have been defeated and canceled. 

Communities are taking control of their futures by placing moratoriums on new data centers. New York enacted a one-year pause on new centers, and there is growing support for a nationwide pause in Congress.

We aren’t destined to live in Elon Musk’s fever dream. We have the power to stop him and his fellow Broligarchs. When we organize, we win. That’s the real “AI Race.” Not China versus the U.S., but us versus Big Tech. That’s not only a race worth running — it’s one we have to win.