Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are pressing to impose a moratorium on AI data centers, and Sanders is expected to carry that fight onto Capitol Hill on Wednesday at a panel discussion that has already drawn a sharp political backlash.
The panel is set to focus on what Max Tegmark described as “AI existential risk and international cooperation,” but the event has been overshadowed by warnings from the White House, the data center industry and major tech-policy think tanks that Sanders’ push would slow construction of the infrastructure the United States needs to stay ahead of Beijing in the AI race. The clash gives Sanders a national stage at a moment when the argument over AI is no longer just about safety, but about speed, power and who gets to shape the next wave of computing.
The criticism intensified on Monday after Rep. Pat Harrigan posted on X ahead of the event. Harrigan singled out Xue Lan, a professor at the CCP-funded Tsinghua University and chairman of a Ministry of Science and Technology-backed AI governance committee, as well as Zeng Yi, the dean of the Beijing Institute of AI Safety and Governance and another figure tied to that committee. He said Tsinghua is “one of China's top universities with direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party,” and argued that Sanders was giving Beijing-linked figures a place in a debate about America’s AI future.
Harrigan also pointed to China’s hard line on AI and investment, saying the country recently blocked Meta’s $2 billion deal to acquire Manus AI, a startup whose founders had already moved to Singapore. In his post, he said Beijing “aggressively” locks down its most powerful AI assets while shutting American companies out, and accused Sanders of wanting to “hand them a seat at the table” to help decide how the United States handles the technology.
Sanders’ allies see the issue differently. The Vermont senator and Ocasio-Cortez have framed their moratorium as a response to the fallout from rapid AI expansion, including pressure on communities and the energy demands of huge data centers. Tegmark has said the Wednesday event is meant to grapple with the global dangers of advanced AI, not to cede ground to China, and his emphasis on international cooperation reflects a view held by many researchers that AI risk will not stop at national borders.
Michael Sobolik, who criticized the planned discussion, said, “I think Senator Sanders’ concerns about AI are overstated, but I respect them. We should be asking questions about child safety, community impact, and economic displacement.” He then drew a line at the foreign policy dimension, saying, “What we shouldn’t do is partner with foreign adversaries like the Chinese Communist Party in those discussions.”
The episode showed how quickly the politics of AI have turned from a policy fight into a loyalty test. Comfortably Smug, a co-host of the Ruthless Podcast, reacted to Harrigan’s post with a blunt “Holy sh--,” capturing the mood of a right-wing online crowd that sees Sanders’ approach as a giveaway to Beijing. For Sanders, the Wednesday panel is likely to sharpen rather than soften the dispute: he is using the moment to argue that the United States should slow the buildout of AI infrastructure, while his critics say that is exactly the kind of restraint that could hand China an edge.
That leaves Sanders with a clear political choice and a clear answer to the challenge now hanging over the event: he is not backing away. He is pushing ahead with a moratorium, and on Wednesday he will face a debate that is bigger than one panel — whether the United States should race China on AI capacity or put the brakes on the buildout before the technology outruns its guardrails.
