The "Evil" Empire More Trusted on AI
All the data centers being built are being built on the premise that we have to stay ahead of China. "We" don't want China to gain a strategic or commercial advantage over us in this new and innovative technology. Nevertheless, when the question is asked who's trusted more to control that said innovation, the answer does not tilt in the US's favor.
Pew Research Center’s September 17, 2026 report examines how much people in 12 countries trust China, the United States and the European Union to effectively regulate artificial intelligence. The survey, conducted among 13,696 adults between February 8 and May 13, 2026, found that China received the highest median level of trust: 43%, compared with 35% for the United States and 34% for the EU.
The findings represent a notable change from Pew’s 2025 survey of a different group of 25 countries, when the EU generally received the highest level of trust, followed by the U.S. and then China. Think about that: the EU went from first to third in a year's time.
The differences were particularly pronounced across countries. Respondents in Bangladesh, Malaysia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the West Bank and East Jerusalem were more likely to trust China than either the U.S. or EU to regulate AI. Singaporeans expressed relatively high trust in both China and the EU, while respondents in Chile and Thailand gave the three entities roughly similar levels of trust.
The Philippines was the only country surveyed in which the United States was more trusted than both China and the EU. Pew also found that people frequently placed greater trust in their own governments: in half of the 12 countries surveyed, respondents trusted their own country more than China, the U.S. or EU to regulate AI.
The study also identifies a relationship between general attitudes toward an institution and confidence in its AI regulation. Across all 12 countries, people who viewed China, the U.S. or EU favorably were more likely to trust that entity to regulate AI effectively. Awareness of AI mattered as well: people who had heard or read more about artificial intelligence were often more trusting of foreign governments and institutions as regulators. Pew stated that the countries included in this particular comparison were predominantly middle-income nations, so the results may or may not represent global public opinion as a whole.
At the beginning of this writing, I place the word we in quotations, because we isn't reflective of most Americans. About 6 in 10 Americans (61%) oppose the construction of new data centers in their communities. It gets worse...
Gallup found an even higher 70% opposed to constructing AI data centers in their local area in a March 2–18, 2026 poll. Nearly half - 48% - were strongly opposed. And as was stated above, the more informed the individual, the less likely they were of there own government. We see this taking place inside America itself.
In local communities in across the country in red and blue states and across party lines (the Annenberg survey found 69% of Democrats, 54% of Republicans, and 53% of independents opposed new local data centers). Meaning that distrust of government control of AI is of local governance also.
As the tech oligarchs are contemplating when this AI bubble will pop, the bubble of trust has already burst and it threatens to drown a few avaricious giants and the politicians they have in their pockets as well.
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