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By Hannah Parry
Associate News Editor
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House Speaker Mike Johnson has dismissed growing opposition to artificial intelligence data centers as a Chinese influence operation, even as polling shows substantial resistance to new facilities across both parties.
Speaking Monday, Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said opposition to AI data centers amounts to a "Chinese psyop," arguing that Washington should resist imposing a moratorium or broad new regulations on the industry because doing so could allow China to pull ahead in the global AI race. He has stated that the tech industry should be able to regulate itself.
"We do not need a moratorium. We do not need to jump in and hyper regulate this because we'll lose the race to China," Johnson said. "The innovation is important to continue."
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"That is a Chinese psyop. I really believe that. That's not a conspiracy theory," Johnson said.
His remarks come just days after President Donald Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House for a lavish state visit, complete with a military arrival ceremony, state dinner, flyover and other formal displays of diplomatic hospitality.
But while the White House is embracing AI at full throttle, voters appear considerably less enthusiastic. Recent polling shows significant opposition to new data centers across both parties and among urban, suburban and rural voters alike, with Americans raising concerns about the pace of AI development and the lack of adequate safeguards.
That growing unease comes as the technology industry itself moves to strengthen AI guardrails. Nvidia has unveiled its Open Agent Safety Platform, designed to place tighter controls on autonomous AI systems. The company says the platform can quarantine AI agents that attempt to escape their designated boundaries within "milliseconds."
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Elon Musk-owned social media platform X has claimed it found evidence that Chinese-linked accounts have attempted to influence the American debate over AI infrastructure.
In August, X said its safety team had identified a suspected Chinese bot farm containing approximately 200,000 accounts. About 200 of those accounts were posting material that could manipulate the U.S. debate over AI and energy policy, including claims that data centers were driving electricity prices higher and straining the power grid, X stated.
That finding provides some basis for Johnson's broader concern about foreign influence. But it does not demonstrate that Americans who oppose data centers are being manipulated by China.
Johnson Faces Pushback From His Own Party
Johnson's comments on Monday put him at odds with a growing number of Republicans who have raised concerns about the industry's rapid expansion, including its impact on electricity costs, the power grid and local communities.
Johnson argued that the United States cannot afford to slow AI development or "hyper regulate" the industry while China remains a major technological competitor. But his call for the technology industry to largely police itself comes as Republican lawmakers and officials in several states have increasingly questioned the costs of accommodating the data-center boom.
Earlier this month, Republican and Democratic voices appeared together at a Washington event calling for stronger AI guardrails. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and independent Senator Bernie Sanders were among the most prominent figures demanding greater restrictions, despite their political differences. Republican Representative Chip Roy also raised concerns about data centers and their effects on local communities.
The issue has also appeared in Republican campaigns.
In Michigan, Representative Tom Barrett has emphasized his opposition to taxpayer subsidies for data centers even while campaigning alongside Johnson. In other states, Republican politicians have questioned tax incentives, electricity costs and the infrastructure burden associated with AI facilities.
House Republicans themselves have also been preparing legislation intended to protect electricity customers from costs associated with new data-center demand. The proposed Ratepayer Protection Act would require state regulators to consider rules making data centers absorb some of the costs of new power generation.
That makes the political picture considerably more complicated than "Democrats oppose AI and Republicans support it."
The emerging coalition is stranger: progressives worried about corporate power and environmental costs, conservatives worried about electricity prices and local control, populists worried about Big Tech, and some AI safety advocates worried about autonomous systems escaping human control.
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Polls Find Most Americans Want Federal AI Oversight
Johnson's suggestions that the tech industry could regulate itself also clash with a broad swath of Americans who want more oversight of rapidly expanding technology.
That tension carries extra political weight as the country heads toward the midterm elections. Polling increasingly shows Americans concerned about the pace of AI development, the safeguards surrounding the technology, and the impact of the massive data centers needed to power it.
A Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted this month found that 73 percent of Americans were concerned that AI companies were not doing enough to prevent potentially catastrophic consequences from artificial intelligence.
A majority favored federal oversight in establishing AI safety standards, while 55 percent supported slowing AI development. The poll also found that Americans prioritized safe and responsible AI development over maintaining global competitiveness by a substantial margin.
New polls also show that Americans have growing concerns about data centers, independently of any online campaigns.
A September Pew Research Center survey found that 60 percent of Americans said they would be "not too" or "not at all" comfortable with a new data center operating in their community, compared with 26 percent who said they would be extremely, very or somewhat comfortable.
The partisan divide was significant, but opposition was substantial among both the GOP and Democrats. Fifty-four percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they would be uncomfortable with a new local data center, compared with 68 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. Among conservatives, 54 percent expressed discomfort, while the figure rose to 81 percent among liberals.
A separate national poll from the University of Massachusetts Amherst released this month found an even stronger rejection of new local construction. Sixty-five percent of Americans said they opposed building an AI data center in their community, compared with 11 percent who supported it. Even among Republicans, 52 percent opposed such construction, while 18 percent supported it.
The findings underscore that concerns about data centers extend well beyond one political party.
Nvidia Announces New Guardrails
As Johnson argued against "hyper-regulation," Nvidia has announced its Open Agent Safety Platform, a system designed to impose technical boundaries on increasingly autonomous AI agents.
The platform combines Nvidia's OpenShell software with a hardware-based security system called Sentry.
OpenShell creates a controlled environment around an AI agent, allowing organizations to specify which files, networks, processes and other resources the agent can access. Sentry operates separately through Nvidia's BlueField-4 data processing units and is designed to monitor agent behavior independently of the AI system itself. Nvidia says it can quarantine an agent that attempts to escape its boundaries within milliseconds.
CEO Jensen Huang has argued that AI safety requires "full-stack engineering," with protections extending from the AI model to the software runtime and the underlying hardware. More than 100 organizations are participating in or supporting the broader initiative, according to Nvidia, including major technology and AI companies.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Gabe Whisnant and Sam Wilson.
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