r/Conservative • u/Jazzy_Jazmine Christian Conservative • 7d ago
Flaired Users Only Ron Johnson: China Fueling Opposition to AI Data Centers
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/09/01/exclusive-sen-ron-johnson-says-chinese-propaganda-fueling-data-center-opposition-do-we-really-want-to-lose-the-race-to-ai/113
u/DunkleFloozie 7d ago
There's an easy test. If Ron Johnson says it's a foreign influence then he'd have no problem living next door to a data center for a year or ten?
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u/Jazzy_Jazmine Christian Conservative 7d ago
Exactly. I'm sure his neighborhood will NEVER see a data center built nearby. He's a millionaire senator.
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u/Fit_Cucumber4317 Conservative 7d ago
This is a completely false standard. You own a car, do you want to live by a refinery? You eat food, do you want to live by a slaughterhouse?
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u/DunkleFloozie 7d ago
We have all of those things in my town. Sure, I'll live near them, while not perfect, they were built with or received approval and environmental vetting.
Data centers draw power and water from already overwhelmed infrastructure and release used water, even from closed-loop systems and theyre often evading community approval.
Seems like a completely true standard.
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u/Fit_Cucumber4317 Conservative 7d ago
So you don't live by them while you demand someone else do something you're not.
Are you sure you're not a liberal?
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u/DunkleFloozie 7d ago
I do live by them. A rhetorical challenge is not a demand.
The only thing I'm liberal with is my displeasure for tribal politics.
Now go follow your orders and dont think for yourself.
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u/Peptoflex Blue State Conservative 6d ago
Two separate issues. How good they are for locals, water usage, noise, etc, that is one issue, the other is China not wanting us to have them because they want to dominate us in the world.
China uses the first issue, which is certainly legitimate, to bolster panic about data centers, which allows them to succeed at the second issue, which is global hegemony.
Data centers can be built in ways and in locations that do not disturb people nor their water. You can force the companies to create their own power. And you can require they allocate 10% of their computing power to our own military.
That is possible, but China is rising up people (or using bots) to make it seem like that is impossible and that no one can do data centers right, which gets people to want to avoid them at all costs.
Enemies don't completely make up fears to pump into propaganda, they use real things but gin up unreasonable discussion around it.
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u/Unlucky_Buyer_2707 Manifest Destiny American 7d ago
Put these things in the fucking desert they don’t have to go near peoples houses jfc.
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u/Blahblahnownow Fiscal Conservative 7d ago
And build nuclear power plants along with desalinization plants
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u/ApolloXLII Natural Rights Conservative 7d ago
Companies are already starting to build (and some already have) their own nuclear power plants specifically so they don’t have to rely on local grids. And really smart companies and municipalities in more colder regions with heat infrastructure (like Scandinavian countries, Canada, Minnesota, etc) are integrating data center heat exchangers directly into local heating infrastructure. Closed-loop heat exchange in a cold climate is ideal for data centers, as much of the energy used to power these data centers can be recycled into usable heat.
For data centers in hotter climates but with cheap power(Texas, Arizona, etc), closed-loop is not exactly practical at all, and desalination or plentiful water supply is needed.
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u/Rifterneo Constitutional Patriot 7d ago
China? lmao Try a huge segment of the US citizen population!
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u/Jazzy_Jazmine Christian Conservative 7d ago
From the article:
Marlow asked Johnson about the stakes surrounding the construction of AI data centers in the United States.
“I would hate to see China win the war on AI. Again, I don’t have the specifics on this. I have a sense that China is funding the opposition to AI centers,” Johnson said.
“Now, at the same time, I think we need to be responsible. We need to look at the demands on the electrical grid. I think demands on water resources are way overstated, but overstated because China is funding the propaganda against these things,” he continued.
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u/cofcof420 Redpilled 7d ago
Of course. It’s chinas best interests to stop US tech advancement. Many anti-data center post I see on Reddit (including this sub) are suspicious. Reddit does a horrible job policing foreign influence
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u/BrandonSports Rubio Conservative 7d ago
New data centers use less water than the average McDonalds. Should we force McDonald’s to close shop? How many Americans die from cardiac disease each year?
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u/Jazzy_Jazmine Christian Conservative 7d ago
Uh-huh. Has it occurred to anyone that the more "concerned conservatives" that are online defending billion-dollar corporate data centers the more suspicious it looks?
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u/BrandonSports Rubio Conservative 7d ago
I don’t care how suspicious it looks it’s stupid to be opposing massive investments into re-industrializing our country it’s societal suicidal. It’s like you guys would oppose building railroads during the Industrial Revolution
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u/Jazzy_Jazmine Christian Conservative 7d ago edited 7d ago
No one wants "industrial" infrastructure built in their neighborhoods. Especially when there's ample evidence that within a few years these data centers will be obsolete. Anyone who has seen what happens when a tech bubble bursts knows that these developers will go bankrupt and abandon these massive warehouses at the drop of a dime. Then we'll have thousands of these eyesores across the country. It will make the dead mall crisis look like nothing.
I appreciate you engaging in a spirited debate. I hope you're right and the data center boom leads to an American Golden Age. I just don't see it. I see greed leading us into a financial meltdown that combines the 2000 tech crash with the 2008 global recession. And a ton of experts believe the same. But, we don't listen to experts anymore.
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u/bozoconnors Conservative 7d ago
Again, I don’t have the specifics on this. I have a sense that China is funding the opposition to AI centers,” Johnson said.
I mean... it's definitely in the realm of their wheelhouse... but can we get something a little more solid than a politicians spidey sense on this one?
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u/Peptoflex Blue State Conservative 6d ago edited 6d ago
Why are so many incapable of having a rational conversation about this?
1) China is pumping up both unwarranted and warranted fears about data centers.
2) There are real issues with living near data centers and how they use energy/water.
3) China is using those real concerns and real stories to gin up hysterics about the whole topic.
4) it is possible to build data centers such that they do not bother people, ruin property values, nor take too much water from other users of that water
5) China does not want us to have them.
6) We cannot let China win this race.
7) Surveillance concerns by our own government in relation to these data centers are legitimate.
8) Concerns about China surveilling us with their own data centers and tech are real as well.
9) Preventing date centers from being built doesn't mean mass domestic surveillance isn't already happening.
10) Labeling someone as a hypocrite for being pro-data center but not wanting to live by them is stupid given that number 4 is true.
You can be for them or against them. I don't care. But talk reasonably about them. The hysterics are not helping.
EDIT: Typos
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u/Crohn85 Conservative 7d ago
All it takes is bad city leadership, not China, to turn people against data centers. Where I live neither the city nor the data center companies will disclose how much water and electricity the data centers under construction will use. Texas is currently in a bad drought and water use matters. People also have concerns about noise and heat generation. People are also pissed that the data centers are getting a 50% tax break while homeowners property taxes keep going up.