6 minPolitics
Cruz Warns AI Race With China Is America's Defining Economic Fight
Sen. Ted Cruz says winning the artificial intelligence race against China is the single most important economic question facing the United States, and he accuses a coordinated campaign of manipulating opposition to data centers.
Sen. Ted Cruz is warning that the competition between the United States and China over artificial intelligence is the defining economic struggle of the current era, and he says a coordinated influence campaign is working to undermine America's ability to build the infrastructure needed to win it.
Cruz, a third-term Republican from Texas who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, told Fox News Digital that much of the growing opposition to data centers across the country is being manipulated by a well-funded and coordinated effort. He compared it to past campaigns against domestic energy production.
«It's the same reason we saw Middle Eastern countries paying for anti-fracking movements,» Cruz said. «Because if they can convince America, 'Don't develop your oil and gas, just buy it from us,' well, that's great for them and terrible for us. The same is true on data centers.»
The senator argued that if foreign adversaries can persuade Americans to reject data centers at home, the result would be greater reliance on China for artificial intelligence. «If they can convince Americans, 'You don't want data centers here, you want to just rely on the Chinese for AI,' that's great for China, and it's terrible for America,» he said.
Direct funding from the Chinese government into U.S. data center policy debates has not been publicly revealed. However, in June, OpenAI announced it had banned ChatGPT accounts believed to have originated in China that were generating social media comments and images alleging data centers are raising electricity costs for Americans. The company said it shut down two clusters of accounts used in support of apparent covert influence operations aimed at manipulating a legitimate debate about American AI and wider technology policies.
Cruz described the effort to craft policy that ensures the United States wins the AI race as «the single most important economic question facing America today.» He framed the stakes in stark terms, arguing that the outcome will determine whose values are embedded in the technology.
«If China wins, AI will be focused on espionage and propaganda and control and surveillance, because that's the Chinese Communist Party,» Cruz said. «It will be their values. They will use AI to try to control you. If America wins, I want American values to be reflected in AI. I want free speech and individualism and free enterprise and privacy to be reflected in AI, not control and power.»
The senator characterized opposition to AI advancement and data centers as the «dominant position on the Democratic side.» He said that position aligns with large industry players, including Anthropic, that he said want exemption from antitrust laws and to «get in bed with government» to control AI development.
Cruz linked this stance to leftist ideology and the emerging tech philosophy known as effective altruism. «These folks from effective altruism are all hardcore leftists, and they want to use AI to push their leftist ideology,» he said. He also described the dynamic as a money grab, invoking the economic concept of rent seeking, in which large companies ask government for benefits that entrench their position.
«We're seeing the giant AI companies going to government saying, 'Hey, why don't you put us in charge of government and let's set the rules so no one could compete with us,'» Cruz said.
The debate over data centers and AI policy has intensified in Congress and in communities across the country as the midterm elections approach. Parker Thayer, an investigative researcher at the Capital Research Center in Washington, D.C., told Fox News Digital last week that effective altruism is associated with what he called the AI doomerism movement.
Facebook co-founder and billionaire Democratic mega-donor Dustin Moskovitz and his wife Cari Tuna have been leading financial backers of organizations associated with the effective altruism movement. Moskovitz left Facebook in 2008. The couple founded Coefficient Giving, formerly known as Open Philanthropy, and remains its main funders, according to the organization. Tuna serves as its president.
Coefficient Giving says its artificial intelligence work has expanded rapidly, with $168 million committed to AI safety, security and field-building in 2024 and $351 million in 2025. The organization says it is on track to commit more than $1 billion to AI policy advocacy in 2026.
In a 2021 grant application description, the organization said it seeks to fund programs and events in a variety of areas of interest, including effective altruism, global catastrophic risks, biosecurity, AI for epistemics, forecasting and other areas. In 2015, Coefficient Giving launched Project Tailwind, an initiative in which the Moskovitz-funded organization issued a call for founders to launch ambitious AI safety initiatives.
Cruz's remarks underscore how the AI race has moved from a technical and commercial competition into a central political battleground, with control over data center construction, antitrust policy and the philosophical direction of the technology all now part of the national debate.
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