X says it has uncovered a vast network of suspected Chinese-linked accounts that included hundreds of profiles attempting to influence the increasingly heated American debate over artificial intelligence data centres and their impact on household energy costs.
The social media platform identified a bot farm containing roughly 200,000 accounts, with 200 of those accounts posting material focused on US AI and energy policy. X said the activity appeared designed to manipulate genuine concerns surrounding data centres, including claims that the facilities are pushing up electricity prices and putting additional pressure on the power grid.
The allegations were also reported by The Telegraph, which said X had accused China-linked bot accounts of circulating negative claims about AI infrastructure.
X’s Global Government Affairs team said its safety investigators had been examining suspected Chinese inauthentic accounts involved in influence operations. The platform said some accounts distributed AI-generated cartoons portraying data centre companies as enriching themselves while ordinary Americans were left to absorb higher costs.
Accounts posed as ordinary Americans
Some of the accounts highlighted by X used names such as Thomas Jackson, Patricia Robinson, Sandra Thompson and Kenneth Flores, giving the appearance that they belonged to American users, according to Tom’s Hardware.
The accounts also shared reporting from legitimate news outlets before adding their own commentary or imagery, a tactic that could make the material appear more credible to users scrolling through their feeds. In some cases, posts focused on reported increases in electricity costs linked to growing data centre demand and framed the issue as ordinary households subsidising the expansion of large technology companies.
X has not disclosed what the other roughly 199,800 accounts in the network were posting about, meaning only a small part of the wider alleged bot operation has publicly been tied to the data centre debate.
The platform also stopped short of identifying who may have financed, directed or sanctioned the suspected China-linked operation. That distinction is important: X has attributed the accounts to suspected Chinese operators, but the material released so far does not establish that the Chinese government itself ordered the campaign.
Bot campaign targets a real political divide
The discovery comes as opposition to new data centre projects is already growing in parts of the United States, meaning the accounts were attempting to amplify an issue that existed independently of any foreign influence campaign.
The News noted that concerns about electricity consumption, water usage and local infrastructure have already become flashpoints around large data centre developments. It cited research showing sharp increases in electricity prices near some data centre areas and pointed to the enormous power requirements of major planned facilities.
That makes the influence campaign more complicated than simply spreading fabricated claims. Some of the underlying concerns being amplified by the accounts reflect real disputes over who should bear the cost of expanding America’s AI infrastructure.
X said it remains committed to maintaining an open platform for genuine public debate while acting against accounts that violate its authenticity rules. The company said attempts to manipulate political and economic discussions through coordinated fake identities threaten the integrity of conversations taking place on the platform.
The episode shows how the global AI race is increasingly extending beyond chips, models and data centres into public opinion itself. As the United States accelerates investment in AI infrastructure, disputes over electricity prices and local resources are becoming another arena where coordinated online influence operations can seek to shape the political conversation.
Just another tool of the CCP’s inventory and plans to conquer the entire political world and thereby dominate the entire landscape of nations standing in it’s way. This will allow them to control the financial, military, and geographics of the West and most of the EU.