We can’t let data centre fears become a national security vulnerability
The debate about data centres is legitimate and needed. But we should be wary of it becoming an opening for foreign actors seeking to disrupt Australian investment.
Last month, OpenAI revealed it had shut down a group of ChatGPT accounts that were behind a campaign called “Data Centre Bandwagon”. These accounts were run from China, most likely for government clients.
The people running this scheme posed as ordinary Americans and pumped out cartoons and AI-generated images blaming data centres for rising power bills, then pushed them onto X with hashtags to help them spread.
A second network spread the false claim that ChatGPT had leaked users’ data. The New York Times revealed that state media in China, Russia and Iran were pushing the same message to American audiences: that the AI boom is a rort that enriches corporations while ordinary families pay the power bill.
None of this received much attention in the media, which suits those behind the campaign just fine. But it’s worth looking deeper into this new battleground.
