China is rapidly expanding data centre and energy infrastructure to power artificial intelligence, prompting concerns in Washington that Beijing could narrow America's substantial lead in the physical backbone of the AI race. While US officials and analysts acknowledge China remains far behind, they warn its pace of construction is exceptional, and that domestic opposition to new US data centre projects could inadvertently hand China an advantage by slowing American expansion.

The Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence's 2026 AI Index recorded 5,427 US data centres in 2025 against 449 in China, though it noted this does not capture differences in size or capacity. President Trump and Vice President JD Vance both warned that anti-data-centre sentiment and insufficient power generation could cost America its edge, with Vance noting China now produces roughly three times as much electricity as the US. Beijing, through its "East Data, West Computing" initiative, is shifting computing capacity to western regions with cheaper land and renewable energy, including intensive construction in Inner Mongolia and Ningxia, which US congressional commission members have described as a frontier of strategic competition. The Chinese Embassy, however, rejected framing AI as a geopolitical contest, pointing instead to its 2025 Global AI Governance Action Plan and calling for international cooperation.