Investigations reveal that foreign donors have supplied almost $40 million to organisations that have signed a December 2025 letter calling for a national moratorium on the approval and construction of new data centres in the United States. The bulk of the money comes from Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, who has given $7,455,000 to Greenpeace USA, $4,382,000 to Americans for Financial Reform, $2,107,400 to the Sierra Club and $50,000 to the Indivisible Project – a total of just under $14 million.
Other major contributors
British hedge‑fund manager and climate activist Chris Hohn contributed $200,000 to Extinction Rebellion, another signatory of the letter. The UK‑based Oak Foundation has provided $7.5 million to 350.org, $6,375,000 to the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), $550,000 to New York Communities for Change and $4,000,000 to Oil Change International. Denmark’s KR Foundation has donated nearly $1.1 million to 350.org, almost $500,000 to Friends of the Earth and roughly $1.9 million to Oil Change International. The British Quadrature Climate Foundation has contributed close to $1 million to 350.org and $2.2 million to the John Muir Project.
Combined, these three foundations, together with Wyss and Hohn, account for the near‑$40 million total. Wyss alone supplies more than a third of that sum. A spokeswoman for the Wyss Foundation said the foundation “was not involved” in the letter and that its grants to the groups were “unrelated”.
Impact on data‑centre development
Opposition campaigns have already delayed or blocked projects representing $152 billion of potential investment in 2025, according to boutique research firm Data Center Watch. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum attributed the surge in resistance to foreign‑funded climate organisations, noting, “There are some states that are literally passing bans on AI data centers.” He added that the movement is “not organic or local”.
House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Brett Guthrie (R., Ky.) echoed the security angle, stating, “Whoever controls the flow of data and AI isn’t going to be one of the super powers but the super power.” He warned that only the United States and China possess the capacity to dominate the sector.
Businessman Kevin O’Leary has also suggested that “Chinese‑linked funding channels” are behind opposition to his Utah data‑centre projects, arguing that China would benefit from slowing American AI infrastructure.
Chinese media involvement
State‑run Chinese outlets have amplified anti‑data‑centre narratives. An October 2025 video from China Global Television Network described AI‑driven data centres as “energy‑hungry” and blamed them for a “major spike in energy prices” on the West Coast, Mid‑Atlantic and New England. A March piece in China Daily, citing a Siena University economics professor, claimed that “electricity prices in the United States are emerging as a new source of economic strain” because of surging demand from data centres. The Global Times has published similar commentary.
By contrast, Chinese government policy subsidises up to half the energy costs of domestic data centres, and its media celebrates the country’s advances in AI, humanoid robotics and large‑language models.
Responses and implications
Aside from the Wyss Foundation, the listed groups and donors did not respond to requests for comment. The growing foreign‑funded opposition raises questions about the United States’ ability to expand AI and compute capacity and to compete with China in the global technology arena.