A China-based American tycoon is funding a Beijing-backed influence campaign in the U.S. to block construction of large computer data centers, according to a new think tank report.
Neville Roy Singham, who lives in Shanghai, is funneling millions of dollars to the U.S. communist group Party for Socialism and Liberation to support the influence effort, according to a report by the Bitcoin Policy Institute made public Tuesday.
China is fomenting public unrest in the U.S. against the building of artificial intelligence and the data centers fueling the technology, the report said.
Protests against the warehouse-sized data centers being built around the country amid concerns about the use of large amounts of electricity and water are legitimate and normal, the report said.
“But running parallel to this domestic, democratic movement is a foreign influence campaign that has worked to amplify public division and opposition to American AI infrastructure,” the report said.
Mr. Singham, a Connecticut-born tech entrepreneur who sold his company and moved to Shanghai, is a leader of the anti-data center movement.
Investigators describe Mr. Singham as a Marxist who is one of the largest private funders of left-wing political organizing in the U.S.
Congress has conducted several inquiries into Mr. Singham, who made millions from ties to the Chinese Communist Party and his fund.
Mr. Singham is also the subject of a federal grand jury investigation in New York into financial activity, Fox News Digital reported earlier this week, quoting people familiar with the probe.
Fox News reported earlier that Mr. Singham provided $285 million into a Goldman Sachs philanthropy fund that fueled leftist nonprofit organizations, media activities and activist groups.
Disclosure of the federal investigation follows a request to the Justice Department earlier this month from Sen. Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, to investigate reports that China is involved in manipulating U.S. policy and public opinion against construction of AI data centers.
The request was based in part on an earlier Bitcoin Policy Institute report.
Separately, the AI company OpenAI issued a report identifying Chinese-linked influence operations on its platform ChatGPT to create opposition to AI data centers.
The Bitcoin Policy Institute report is the second in a series of studies on Chinese influence against data centers. Its earlier report disclosed that the CCP-linked network headed by Mr. Singham collaborated with Chinese official state media to produce anti-data center content in the U.S. to undermine AI infrastructure, labs and export controls.
The new report highlights rallies, petitions, activities in local government council chambers and small town campaigns that were able to stall data centers.
“At the heart of many of these campaigns is the Singham network,” the report said.
The joint efforts of Mr. Singham’s funding and PSL action have led to around $23.6 billion in delayed or blocked funding for data centers. Four data center projects were dropped, 10 local governments imposed moratoria on construction and one data center was permanently banned, the report said.
The report identified the Party for Socialism and Liberation as a Marxist-Leninist group with documented links to foreign powers with the group’s stated goal to dismantle American capitalism and leaders “drawn directly from the executives of Singham’s nonprofits.”
The PSL stated in an email Tuesday that it is hosting a rally headlined “No AI data centers in Prince George’s” aimed at building support for an extension of a county moratorium that ends Wednesday on the construction of data centers.
“Join us in showing the County Executive and Council that our struggle against Big Tech doesn’t stop at the ballot box,” the group’s email said.
PSL did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Singham could not be reached for comment.
In addition to Maryland, China-backed anti-data center activities have taken place in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and North Carolina in the South; Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin in the Midwest; and Arizona, California, Colorado and Utah in the West.
The report reveals what it calls the “ground game” of the Singham network using 18 case studies that highlight the threat of China “putting its thumb on the scale of the AI discourse.”
“The conclusion we draw is straightforward, and we hope, noncontroversial: Americans deserve full transparency into the Singham network and its connections to the CC,” the report stated.
“A group with documented foreign ties and undisclosed funding has embedded itself within a genuine opposition movement. A party that advances positions aligned with the Chinese government, amplifies its messaging, and seeks to abolish the US government through revolutionary means has distorted the discourse between public officials and American citizens on the topic of artificial intelligence and related infrastructure,” the report said.
The report was written by the institute’s director of research, Sam Lyman, a former senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
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