China’s AI strategy could turn Americans into data mines

“The future of AI will either be ruled by American values or by China.”

That warning came last month from Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. It may sound abstract. It is not.

The question is no longer whether China seeks technological supremacy. It is how far it is willing to go — and how much Americans are willing to tolerate.

The Chinese Communist Party already appalled the world with its industrial-scale harvesting of organs from living human beings. Now it is pursuing something even more invasive: the exploitation of the human brain itself to power artificial intelligence and enforce political control.

This year, President Trump’s team prepared a national plan to secure American dominance in AI. At the same time, Guthrie and his colleagues — Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) and Rep. John Joyce (R-Pa.) — have been pressing government agencies and private firms with urgent questions about China’s activities and the risks to U.S. national security.

The evidence is alarming.

The CCP has harvested brain-wave data from some of the world’s highest-performing athletes, including a Formula 1 driver and elite alpine skiers. It has built systems to collect brain-wave data from Chinese schoolchildren at scale. Now concerns are mounting that it may be harvesting the brain-wave data of unsuspecting Americans through wearable headband devices sold openly on Amazon.

These devices represent a primitive form of brain-computer interfaces.

BCIs are an American innovation with legitimate and profound medical promise. Brain-computer interfaces allows paralyzed individuals to control prosthetics, smartphones, and computers using their thoughts. Physicians use BCIs to address cognitive impairments affecting memory, learning, and focus. Researchers see potential applications for treating depression, epilepsy, autism, schizophrenia, and Parkinson’s disease.

Elon Musk’s company Neuralink helped pioneer BCI development to restore autonomy to patients with severe neurological conditions. Musk has also argued that such technology could help humans keep pace as artificial intelligence grows more powerful.

The CCP’s motives are different — and far less virtuous.

Beijing views BCIs not as a therapeutic tool, but as a strategic weapon. By collecting and analyzing human brain-wave data, Chinese researchers have made advances in mind-reading and behavioral control designed to enforce obedience to the Communist Party. The regime is now exploring the use of this data to develop what it calls “super soldiers” — or humanoid combat robots integrated with human cognitive input.

Disturbingly, some of this progress has been enabled by elite American research institutions.

“China is working on pairing humanoid robotics with BCI,” said Sam Koppelman, publisher of the investigative research firm Hunterbrook. His team conducted a six-month investigation into BrainCo, a company founded at Harvard, funded by a People’s Liberation Army-linked entity, and later relocated to China.

In response, Guthrie, Bilirakis, and Joyce formally urged the Justice Department to investigate “potential national security risks posed by BrainCo.”

Their concerns followed Guthrie’s probe into DeepSeek, another AI company that his committee said maintains a “close relationship with the Chinese Communist Party.”

"DeepSeek admits to sending Americans’ personal information to servers in China, where it is undoubtedly accessed by officials connected to the Chinese Communist Party," Guthrie said in a joint statement with Bilirakis.

According to Koppelman, China now prioritizes what it openly calls “cognitive warfare.”

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“This technology, as it develops, will be able to do things like read your brain,” he explained on a podcast. “They’re going to hack the human brain. That’s the idea.”

Hunterbrook reports that BrainCo and DeepSeek are among the CCP’s so-called “Six Little Dragons” of high-tech development.

BrainCo’s consumer-facing products include wearable EEG headbands marketed for meditation and focus. Its OxyZen and FocusCalm devices promise to help users “train your brain for better focus and a calmer mind.”

But critics warn the process may work in reverse — using American brain-wave data to train China’s planned army of super soldiers.

BrainCo disputes the allegations. Its FocusCalm website features a pop-up statement denying military ties and threatening legal action against critics.

The Trump administration is now weighing how to respond to what increasingly resembles a nightmarish penetration of American high-tech research and consumer markets. This month, the administration formally defined AI dominance as a “core, vital national interest.”

The question is no longer whether China seeks technological supremacy. It is how far it is willing to go — and how much Americans are willing to tolerate.

If the CCP can harvest our data, map our thoughts, and manipulate cognition itself, what will it do next?