OpenAI has banned hundreds of ChatGPT accounts it says were part of a Chinese influence campaign designed to shape American public opinion about AI data centers, according to E&E News by POLITICO.
The company said the operation sought to shift how people in the United States view the rapid buildout of AI infrastructure — a politically sensitive topic that has drawn debate over energy use, land rights, and local community impact.
According to the Times of India, OpenAI stated it is actively "helping the US government" as part of its response to the suspected foreign interference. The company moved to ban the accounts as it disclosed the effort publicly.
The accusation adds a new dimension to the already fraught rivalry between the United States and China over artificial intelligence dominance. Rather than targeting technical systems directly, this alleged operation aimed at swaying grassroots sentiment — a softer but potentially effective form of interference that can influence local policy debates, zoning decisions, and political support for the infrastructure investments that underpin AI development.
Data centers are the physical backbone of the AI race: they house the servers that train and run large language models, consume enormous amounts of electricity, and are being built at a pace that has drawn both government backing and community opposition across the US. Shaping how ordinary Americans feel about them could, in theory, slow the buildout that companies like OpenAI depend on.
If confirmed, it would mark one of the first documented cases of a foreign government running an influence campaign specifically targeting AI infrastructure policy — a sign that the competition over AI is expanding well beyond labs and chip factories into the court of public opinion.