Many of the Chinese bots X says posted anti-data-center content had no followers or engagement, a researcher found

A researcher at Clemson said Chinese bot accounts are not moving the needle in the US data center debate.

Jay Janner/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images X said it uncovered 200 "suspected" Chinese bots posting anti-data-center content.

A Clemson researcher found that about 60 of those bots had zero followers or engagement.

The researcher said the bots had virtually no impact on the data center debate.

China is trying to influence the AI data center debate in the United States.

How effective it's been is another question.

X said on Thursday that it uncovered a 200,000-strong Chinese bot farm and that a couple hundred of those accounts posted disparaging content about data centers "in a manner that could manipulate a legitimate debate about American AI and energy policy." What X didn't disclose, according to Darren Linvill, a researcher at Clemson University, is that at least 59 of those bots had zero engagement and were likely quickly deactivated by X before they could garner a following.

While it's still possible some X users saw the posts, Linvill described it as a "non-story." "No real humans saw these posts about data centers," Linvill told Business Insider.

Linvill said he used a Clemson platform that retains data from suspended X accounts to search for an obscure hashtag used by the bots featured in screenshots X posted in its disclosure.

He also identified bot accounts by checking whether they shared AI-created images flagged by X as part of the Chinese campaign.

That hashtag, "capacityauction," returned 90 posts, all of which were created in January, according to a spreadsheet of the data Linvill shared with Business Insider.

Each account posted only "two or three times each" before X suspended them, Linvill said.

Many AI evangelists in Silicon Valley, right-wing influencers, and Shark Tank investor Kevin O'Leary , who is developing a data center in Utah, have promoted the narrative that a Chinese propaganda campaign is fueling anti-data center sentiment in the United States.

"There is absolutely, without a question, bipartisan — broad bipartisan — grassroots activity against data centers," said Samuel Woolley, a researcher who studies social media and propaganda at the University of Pittsburgh.