A think tank best known for advocating Bitcoin-friendly policy just held court in one of the most politically charged rooms on Capitol Hill, and the topic wasn’t crypto. It was China.
The Bitcoin Policy Institute hosted a fireside chat on July 29 in the House Select Committee on the CCP’s hearing room, presenting research that documents how foreign influence operations connected to the Chinese Communist Party have systematically targeted US AI infrastructure development. The conversation featured BPI Head of Research Sam Lyman and journalist Robby Soave.
The numbers behind the influence campaign
BPI’s research, published across two reports in May and June 2026, estimates that approximately $23.6 billion in proposed AI infrastructure investments have been blocked or delayed as a result of these campaigns, spanning 21 separate campaigns across 14 different states.
BPI’s reports document that the influence operations are connected to 10 data center moratoria, one permanent ban on data center construction, and four proposals that were scrapped entirely.
The initial report, released on May 18, 2026, zeroed in on two key vectors of influence. First, CCP-affiliated state media amplifying opposition to AI infrastructure projects. Second, a nonprofit network funded by Neville Roy Singham, a Chicago-born tech entrepreneur whose financial ties to Beijing have drawn increasing scrutiny from lawmakers.
A follow-up report released in late June detailed what BPI calls the “Singham ground game,” describing how organizations in his funding network, including the Party for Socialism and Liberation, have organized grassroots-style opposition to data center development in communities across the country.
Why a Bitcoin think tank cares about AI infrastructure
Bitcoin mining and AI data centers share the same fundamental resource: cheap, abundant energy and physical infrastructure. The political and regulatory battles over where to build large-scale computing facilities affect both industries. A moratorium on data centers in a given county doesn’t distinguish between a facility training large language models and one mining Bitcoin.
Congressional interest in the Singham network has intensified, with lawmakers calling for deeper investigations into the funding flows and organizational connections.
No cryptocurrency or digital asset was mentioned during the event or in the underlying reports.