A significant and growing portion of the capital flowing into the U.S. data center market originates from foreign entities, including individuals, sovereign wealth funds, and multinational corporations.
Some of my readers may remember the strong opposition that was generated by the local Spokane chapter of Citizens Alliance for Property Rights (CAPR) regarding the planned 2018 Avista Utilities sale to a company called “Hydro-One”. At the time of the proposed sale, Hydro-One was 40% owned by the Provincial Government of Ontario, and 60% owned by investors who’s identities were protected by Canadian confidentiality laws. Raising awareness about the possibility of losing control of our local utility to un-named foreign actors, as well as the potential for rate hikes, job losses, and the likelihood of being stuck paying debts for things like nuclear plant decommissioning on foreign soil, was critical in derailing the planned sale.
Foreign ownership is precisely one of the issues relevant to the boom in data center proliferation. Our stable government, abundant energy infrastructure, plentiful water resources, and open spaces, make America an attractive investment target for data center development. In fact, the United States already has between 2,700 and 4,000 large scale data centers, which is 9 times more than any other country on earth. Sovereign wealth funds, global private equity firms, and investors from all around the world, including Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into developing U.S. data centers. President Trump has strongly encouraged this money flow, but has issued a memorandum declaring that investment from certain “adversarial” countries is unwelcome. Regardless of Trump’s intention to bar investment from certain “countries of concern”, the barn door remains wide open, raising serious questions about national sovereignty and security.
In most states, foreign capital investments are welcomed with little or no restrictions. Our Federal watchdog agency, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), is authorized to review certain foreign investments in order to determine the effect of such transactions on our national security.
CFIUS has demonstrated that it is incapable of tracking and assessing these investments. In fact, CFIUS generally relies on the public for help, and includes a tip line on their website where individuals can report concerns about specific foreign investments. When they do find reason for concern, CFIUS can make recommendations to the President but lacks the enforcement capacity to block specific transactions.
For example, in 2022, Microsoft’s national security team submitted a 16-page report to CFIUS outlining concerns about a data center near Cheyenne, Wyoming, that was owned by MineOne Cloud Computing, LLC, which is a New York based financial investment company owned by nationals of the People’s Republic of China.
The data center in question was operating as a crypto-currency mining operation in close proximity to Warren Air Force Base. It was also close to a major Microsoft hyperscale data center that was doing business for the U.S. military. Microsoft’s security team raised concerns that the facility could be capable of infiltrating outside computer networks.
(Art by Midjourney for Fierce Network)
Despite legitimate concerns about MineOne’s ownership and intentions, it took nearly two years for the Biden administration to take action. Operations at the MineOne data center were not shut down until an executive order was issued in 2024. The order stated that, “the proximity of the foreign-owned cryptocurrency mining facility to a strategic missile base and key element of America’s nuclear triad, and the presence of specialized and foreign-sourced equipment potentially capable of facilitating surveillance and espionage activities, presented a significant national security risk that led to CFIUS’s referral to the President.”
In 2025, a full three years after Microsoft’s initial complaint about MineOne’s data center, the Trump administration launched an investigation called “Operation Red Sunset.” The operation’s stated goal was to determine whether Beijing can access these mining machines remotely and use them for cyber espionage or to sabotage the power grid. The investigation remains active and ongoing. To date, no findings or conclusions have been released to the public.
Clearly, whether we like it or not, data centers have become a major part of our critical infrastructure. We need to know who has control over them. We need to know exactly what each of them is doing, or is capable of doing. There needs to be much stronger government regulatory mechanisms and a total moratorium placed on foreign ownership. We can’t keep building these things without knowing how they will be used and who makes the decisions.
While there are multiple bills related to data centers currently being floated in Congress, states like Florida aren’t waiting around. On May 7, 2026, Governor Ron DeSantis signed SB 484.
The Florida bill does several things. It prohibits utilities from passing data center costs, including electricity costs, onto residential and business customers and prevents financial risk from being shifted to the public. The bill preserves local authority over zoning, permitting, and land use, but also allows communities to set stricter standards or deny projects while strengthening codes and environmental standards.
However, the most important part of the bill is that it increases transparency and security by “prohibiting utilities from serving data centers owned or controlled by foreign countries of concern.“
While, in my opinion, Florida’s bill doesn’t go far enough defining “foreign countries of concern”, the Federal government, and every single state, should be enacting measures that restrict foreign ownership of data centers. Control over each and every part of America’s critical infrastructure, from food production to the technology that we all depend on for daily living, should not be in the hands of foreign entities, regardless of whether they are considered “friendly” or not.
Most tech experts agree that our current laws and regulatory mechanisms governing data centers are inadequate and are not up to the challenges created by these innovative new technologies. The advent of AI poses especially unique challenges that have never even been imagined, let alone, anticipated. Control over America’s resources and technology, the digital universe that we all now depend on, is critical for our survival. Besides restricting the ownership and operation of data centers to American citizens, every state should enact strong regulatory and oversite mechanisms to insure that data centers are operating as permitted and in the best interests of the American people.
While much debate is focused on the massive infrastructure requirements for hyper-scale data centers, their effects on the electric grid, water use, and other environmental concerns, if we ignore their national security implications, we do so at our own peril.
The U.S. government was established to promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty for the American people. If we neglect to do our due diligence regards foreign ownership of critical American infrastructure, we could easily lose both our security, and our liberty.
Sources for this article include:
https://www.datacenters.com/locations
https://search.brave.com/search?q=mICROSOFT+CHEYENNE+Wyoming
https://www.fwpcoa.org/content.aspx?page_id=5&club_id=859275&item_id=130961
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/america-first-investment-policy/
https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2335
“Agentic Misalignment: How LLMs could be insider threats”. Anthropic. 21 June 2025.
https://safe.ai/ai-risk#conclusion
https://aistatement.com/work/statement-on-ai-extinction-risk#open-letter
https://www.cfius.gov/resources/tips
Closer to home….Bitmain, a Chinese owned company, is partnering with a U.S. firm to operate a data mining center out of Usk, WA.
https://www.rangemedia.co/usk-wa-bitmain-ponderay-newsprint-mill-gonzaga-allrise/
https://www.cascadepbs.org/news/2022/11/tiny-eastern-wa-town-could-become-bitcoin-mining-hub/
https://coingeek.com/the-shadow-over-bitmain-why-washington-now-eyes-btc-miners/
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/sep/25/large-data-center-proposed-for-former-papermill-in/