China Seeks Role in US AI Data Center Boom
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1 left · 0 center · 1 right
What happened
An academic paper titled "Capital without Labor: Data Centers and the Local Economy," coauthored by Qiang Wang, a graduate of China's Zhejiang University; Liu Ee Chia of the National University of Singapore; and Penn State researchers Jess Cornaggia and David Haushalter, concluded there was "limited evidence that data center development improves fiscal balances, employment, or business formation," and estimated extra local costs of about $2.30 a year per $1,000 borrowed in school and water bonds, or $6 per $1,000 in water-scarce counties. New York Times reporter Talmon Joseph Smith and CNBC's Carl Quintanilla publicly highlighted the paper. The Daily Wire then reported that Zhejiang University has defense labs tied to Chinese intelligence; Wang said she majored in food science, took no artificial-intelligence courses, and that her time there "did not shape my opinion on artificial intelligence," while Chia called any suggestion of Chinese Communist Party influence "a serious allegation with no evidence behind it." Separately, Singapore-registered Brightray, whose sole manufacturer is Chinese firm PrefabDC, said it sees strong U.S. demand for prefabricated data centers, as the United States had 5,427 AI data centers in 2025 compared with China's 449, according to the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, and U.S. firms including Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon were estimated to spend about $765 billion this year on AI infrastructure.
Sourcing check · Fully on the record · 2 articles
2 of 2 articles cite a named source for the story. It was on the record from the first report.
What these terms mean and how they're counted
- On the record · names a source 2 of 2
- On the record means the article cites a source by name for the story's main claim: a person, or an institution speaking officially, such as a company statement or a named agency's spokesperson. The opposite is an unnamed source. The count is how many of the counted articles cite at least one such source; the names are everyone named across them, each once however the articles spell it. Here: S.K. Lee, Jeffrey Ding and Dave McCormick
- Primary evidence · cites a document or data 1 of 2
- Primary evidence means the article cites a record you could check yourself: a court filing or ruling, a dataset or report, a recording or transcript, an official statement or press release, market data. A quote is not a document. The count is how many articles cite one. Here: dataset
- Credits another outlet 0 of 2
- The article says the story comes from another outlet's reporting (“first reported by Reuters”). Those articles relay the story; they are not independent confirmation. Here: Each article presents its own reporting.
- Unnamed sources 0 of 2
- The main claim is attributed to people who are not identified: “people familiar with the matter”, “officials said”. The count is how many articles do this.
- How it developed
- When the first report landed and whether it named anyone; when the first named source and the first document appeared. Here: First report Sep 26, 12:00 UTC by CNBC, naming its source. First document in the first report, from CNBC (dataset).
- Not counted 0
- Opinion, analysis and video pieces, and articles too short to assess. Every count above is out of the counted articles. An article republished under a new headline is one article.
This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
Left-leaning coverage does not report the academic study now being cited against data centers, or that one coauthor graduated from Zhejiang University, so the China-ties dispute never appears. Right-leaning coverage in The Daily Wire makes that school affiliation the entire story, including that Zhejiang has defense labs tied to Chinese intelligence. Left-leaning coverage at CNBC instead follows Chinese manufacturers seeking work on the U.S. buildout and does not name Qiang Wang or the paper at all.
Left-leaning coverage describes Chinese manufacturers eyeing an "opportunity." Right-leaning coverage describes the coauthor's university as having "ties to the Chinese Communist Party," and leads with party control of Chinese campuses rather than the paper's math.
Do the paper's findings on local jobs and taxes change if the author's undergraduate campus is ignored?
Bottom line
You can finish CNBC's story on China and U.S. data centers without learning that critics' go-to paper has a coauthor who graduated from Zhejiang University.
The receipts — 5 facts one side's coverage lacks
- Paper coauthor Qiang Wang graduated from Zhejiang University
- Zhejiang University has defense labs tied to Chinese intelligence
- The average Loudoun County resident saves $5,800 a year in property taxes from data-center revenue
- Wang majored in food science at Zhejiang and said her time there did not shape her opinion on AI
- Chinese companies already supply transformers, batteries, and fiber-optic cables in the U.S. data-center supply chain
The Left View
CNBC framed Chinese manufacturers' interest in the U.S. buildout as a commercial response to stronger American demand, not as a security plot. Brightray vice president S.K. Lee said there is "very big potential in the U.S. market" and that production sits in China because its supply chain is "very integrated and comprehensive." Jeffrey Ding of George Washington University said Chinese firms "just are not generating as much revenues from their AI services," which limits their own infrastructure spending. Wood Mackenzie's Benjamin Boucher called tariffs and bans "a very challenging environment" but said the United States faces shortages and long lead times for electrical equipment while China "can offer those at a much more favorable timing," adding that "China is definitely very important towards the U.S. supply chain for data centers at the moment." The same report noted Chinese firms already supply transformers, batteries, and fiber-optic cables; that U.S. data centers typically take two to three years to build; and that Brightray claims prefabrication can cut that time by at least half — while recording policymaker fears of cybersecurity risk and possible Trump administration bans on Chinese open-weight models and data-center components.
The Right View
The Daily Wire argued that journalists used the paper to show data centers "are not as profitable as supporters claim," and that Wang's Zhejiang degree ties the work to an institution with intelligence-linked defense labs and, per an expert the outlet cited, instruction in intelligence reporting and attacking and defending AI systems. It treated Beijing's hold on Chinese universities as "a well-documented national security threat," citing charter changes under Xi Jinping that affirm Party leadership, and quoted retired Navy captain Brent Sadler: "In China everything bends the will or serves the Chinese Communist Party" and "There is always an angle from Beijing." It noted that a month before the paper appeared, the Department of War directed Penn State — where two coauthors work and where Chia earned her Ph.D. — to audit collaborations with foreign entities of concern, and that the campus had hosted a Confucius Institute. Against the paper's findings, it reported that Loudoun County, Virginia, residents save an average $5,800 a year in property taxes from $1.3 billion generated by a data center, and that Richland Parish, Louisiana, funded $50,000 teacher bonuses from Meta data-center tax revenue. On water use it quoted Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry that golf courses use 40 times more water than data centers and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that "38,000 ChatGPT queries" use as much water as producing one California almond. It cast data-center criticism as strategically useful to Beijing, quoting President Trump that "There is a sick conspiracy going on against AI and data centers" and "The only one that is happy about it is China."
Our Take (balanced)
The left-leaning coverage's strongest argument is that Chinese involvement is a supply-chain fact of the U.S. boom: domestic electrical gear is scarce and slow, China already furnishes transformers, batteries, and fiber, and Boucher's line that China is "definitely very important towards the U.S. supply chain for data centers at the moment" is the clearest statement of that dependence, with prefabrication offered as a way to shrink two-to-three-year build times. The right-leaning coverage's strongest argument is that a paper now cited to show weak local benefits has a coauthor from a Party-directed Chinese university with intelligence-linked labs, while Loudoun's reported $5,800 average tax savings and Richland Parish's $50,000 teacher bonuses are concrete fiscal gains the "limited evidence" conclusion does not capture. The central unresolved tension is whether those academic credentials and commercial supply roles are ordinary features of a globalized industry, or channels through which Beijing could shape — or benefit from — U.S. skepticism of data-center expansion, a question Wang's food-science record and her coauthor's denial leave standing against the documented Party role in Chinese universities.
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