Why Chinese celebrate AI but Americans hesitate

On 24 November 2025, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order launching the Genesis Mission, bringing America’s national laboratories, scientific data and supercomputers together to accelerate discovery through artificial intelligence (AI). Its ambitions extended from energy to biotechnology and national security. Washington placed AI at the centre of a national mission, with the federal government assembling the people and resources to pursue it.

Costs to locals

But declaring a national mission does not automatically create a shared sense of purpose. Earlier that year, a Pew Research Center survey found that half of American adults were more concerned than excited about AI’s growing role in daily life. Only 10% were more excited than concerned. Clearly, official enthusiasm coexisted with public hesitation.

That hesitation had materialised on the ground. In August 2025, Tucson’s city council unanimously voted to stop annexation and development arrangements for Project Blue, a proposed data-centre campus reportedly intended for Amazon Web Services, which later distanced itself from the project. Residents raised concerns about water consumption, electricity demand, costs to ratepayers and transparency. The developer continued pursuing the project without support from the city.

To Washington, computing infrastructure can look like the foundation of American technological leadership. For nearby residents, the questions are closer to their backyards: where will the water come from, what happens to electricity bills, and how much influence will the community have? National progress becomes harder to embrace when its local costs are tangible and its benefits feel distant.

This gap between national ambition and personal expectation offers a starting point for comparing the US and China. Both governments see AI as strategically important and want domestic firms to succeed. The more revealing difference concerns public trust: how confident people are that they can benefit from technological successes.

When tech achievement hits close to home

In Ipsos’s 2024 survey, 83% of respondents in China agreed that products and services using AI had more benefits than drawbacks, compared with 39% in the US. The survey concerned AI broadly, and its Chinese sample was more urban, educated and affluent than the general population. Those demographics matter, but the contrast remains striking.

One possible explanation lies in how people identify with technological achievement. When DeepSeek attracted worldwide attention in January 2025, Chinese social media carried expressions of pride in a homegrown company competing with leading American developers. Some users interpreted its success as evidence that restrictions on China’s access to advanced technology had not prevented Chinese innovation. A company’s breakthrough became an occasion for national celebration.

While this episode cannot represent every Chinese citizen’s views, it shows how a technical accomplishment can become symbolic. Using a chatbot may offer practical convenience while connecting users to a larger story of national capability and pride. The achievement feels closer when people imagine themselves as part of the society that produced it.

National competitiveness and personal well-being are related, but their connection requires more than an assertion. Data-centre disputes make this tension especially visible. AI’s benefits may be widely distributed, while demands on land, electricity and water are concentrated in particular communities. By organising against these projects, residents bring local concerns onto the national agenda: who should bear the costs of a future intended to benefit everyone?

Negotiating technological changes

These objections do not necessarily signal opposition to AI. A resident can welcome medical advances while questioning a facility’s water use. A worker can find chatbots useful while worrying about job cuts. People distinguish between a technology’s value and the terms on which it enters their lives. American scepticism may therefore reflect doubts about institutions and incentives as much as technical capability. A worker hearing promises of higher productivity can reasonably ask how the gains will be divided. Will they bring higher wages, shorter hours, better services or simply lower labour costs?

Chinese optimism raises a corresponding question: what makes shared benefits seem more credible? National pride, expectations of practical improvements, and confidence in government management may all matter. These remain explanations to investigate, rather than conclusions established by the survey gap.

Regulation further complicates the comparison. China’s 2023 interim measures for generative AI combine support for development with political restrictions and protections concerning privacy, discrimination and users’ rights. For citizens who trust the responsible institutions, oversight may provide reassurance. Yet restrictions on public expression also shape which criticisms actually surface. Confidence in a national project and influence over its implementation are separate questions.

In the US, disputes like Tucson’s bring to light the conflicts among national policy, corporate plans and local priorities. They can slow development, but they also press officials and developers to explain arrangements residents must live with. Public disagreement becomes part of negotiating technological change.

Building trust

Neither optimism nor scepticism is fixed. Confidence can weaken when benefits fail to arrive; scepticism can soften when useful applications improve lives and people have meaningful influence over their use. Both China and the US face the challenge of turning national ambition into credible, shared gains. Better public services and working conditions can give those promises substance, alongside clear rules about who pays for infrastructure and how affected communities participate in decisions.

The Genesis Mission expresses Washington’s ambition to build an AI-powered future. Resistance in Tucson reveals unsettled questions about its costs and rewards. China’s enthusiasm raises a related test of whether technological pride will translate into lasting improvements in ordinary lives. Both governments have made AI part of their national future, but what will it take for their citizens to feel that this future belongs to them?

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