Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that Chinese coal-fired electricity really is cheaper per unit of energy than power generated from American shale gas. That is still an assumption, because given how inexpensive natural gas can be in the United States, that comparison deserves a proper bare-knuckle calculation rather than a slogan.
But let us even grant China the point. Let us assume it wins by a small margin.
Then what?
Who wants to place a multi-billion-dollar data centre in a country where every major asset ultimately operates under the watchful eye of the Chinese Communist Party?
Electricity is only one line in the spreadsheet. It is not the business model.
Data centres are not speculative ventures. They are enormous, capital-intensive projects that need many years—often decades—of uninterrupted, predictable operation before they repay their investment. That requires confidence that the rules tomorrow will resemble the rules today.
That is not a confidence I would place in China.
In fact, at this point I would hesitate to invest in a noodle shop in China, let alone infrastructure worth billions. The country is carrying a growing pile of economic, demographic, financial and geopolitical problems, and none of those pressures appear to be easing. If anything, they are accumulating.
History offers another uncomfortable observation. The greater the pressure on an authoritarian system, the more inventive it tends to become in extracting money, influence or concessions from whoever happens to be within its reach. New regulations, new obligations, selective enforcement, arbitrary decisions—call them whatever you like. They all amount to the same thing.
That is not a recipe for long-term stability.
North America often looks chaotic from a distance. Politics is noisy. Elections are bitter. Institutions argue with one another in full public view. It can resemble dysfunction to an outside observer.
But America has spent generations operating under exactly those conditions. Political turbulence is part of the machinery rather than evidence that the machinery has failed. The system bends, argues, adapts and eventually carries on.
For investors making twenty-year bets, that difference matters far more than shaving a few cents off the electricity bill.
And when you know where to look, power in the United States can be remarkably cheap anyway.
The cheapest electricity is not necessarily the electricity with the lowest price.
It is the electricity that still powers your servers twenty years from now under rules that have not suddenly changed overnight.