The political economy of compute comes into focus as China builds underwater data centers
June 11, 2026
Mississippi communities and Tennessee residents are fighting gas turbines and water diversion to power xAI supercomputers, a struggle obscured by the SpaceX IPO's financial hype and amplified by OpenAI and Chinese actors exploiting energy price fears via ChatGPT. Canadian policy papers explicitly link data center expansion to securing fossil fuel markets, while China counters Western dominance with rival satellite constellations and the world's first wind-powered underwater data center. The physical footprint of AI is now a collision of local ecological degradation, geopolitical infrastructure races, and the financialization of energy, forcing communities to defend their water and air against the material demands of digital computation.
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BRIEF
People Living Near xAI’s Dirty Data Centers Are Furious About the SpaceX IPO
Elon Musk is set to make hundreds of billions even as communities in Mississippi and Tennessee are fighting to stop the gas turbines powering xAI's supercomputers.
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BRIEF
OpenAI says China-based actors stoking opposition to AI data centres
AI company says ChatGPT accounts sought to 'exploit and amplify existing public concerns' about energy prices.
- geopolitics
- structural power
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BRIEF
Mark Carney Adviser Says AI Data Centres ‘Provide Markets’ for Gas
Boosting energy production is one of the top ‘public policy benefits to Canada’ of data centres, says internal government document.
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ANALYSIS
Report and Community Resources: Corporate Power Players in the Data Center Industry
This working draft of AI Now’s upcoming report traces corporate power in the data center industry in the United States, focusing on the flows of money and power that determine who both drives and benefits from the current data center boom. The aim of this research is to help local communities and th…
- AI governance
- structural power
- media and technology
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BRIEF
China builds a rival satellite constellation as SpaceX goes public
A Chinese state-backed satellite company is signing the partners and governments Starlink has pushed aside, days before SpaceX’s record listing.
- AI governance
- media and technology
- geopolitics
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BRIEF
How much heat does an AI data centre produce, and where are they located?
Data centres don't just use large amounts of water and electricity, they're heating the environment too, study finds.
- geopolitics
- structural power
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BRIEF
China Opens World’s First Wind-Powered Underwater Data Center
With an initial capacity of 24 megawatts, the innovative data center uses seawater as a natural cooling system.