Ulanqab

Headlines · 4

1. 19h
   China's eight national computing hubs: what each brings to AI

   A Chinese industry analysis compares the eight national computing hubs behind China's AI build-out: Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei leans on research and talent, the Yangtze River Delta and Greater Bay Area on manufacturing and device pipelines, Chengdu-Chongqing on regional industry and network coordination, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia and Gansu on energy and large data-center capacity, and Guizhou on its existing big-data base. Citing National Data Administration figures published in August 2026, it says China's intelligent computing capacity reached 2.45 million PFLOPS (FP16) as of end-July, with the eight hubs and three computing-energy coordination zones accounting for over 85% of the national total and 1.45 million PFLOPS under the national monitoring and scheduling platform. It also notes Chongqing joining the national computing interconnection regional node list in August and the national integrated computing network being listed as a major project in the 15th Five-Year Plan, with the author arguing the next step is making scattered capacity discoverable and schedulable.

   36氪 人工智能 · 🔥 6
2. 1d
   China's $4T compute buildout faces 63% idle capacity as inference reshapes the math

   China's Academy of Information and Communications Technology estimates that of roughly 3.8 billion card-hours of intelligent compute supplied nationwide in 2025, only about 1.4 billion were used — a 36.8% utilization rate — even as the NDRC cites projections of 4 trillion yuan in new direct investment in the compute network during the next five-year plan and Ulanqab touts 89 signed data center projects plus ambitions to become a "Token capital." The piece attributes the idle capacity to investment that outpaces demand, fixed costs at local state-funded AI centers that are hard to amortize, and customers who prefer cloud providers' packaged pay-as-you-go model services over migrating. As agents spread, it cites Gartner's forecast that global inference-related AI infrastructure spending will reach $23.3 billion in 2026, overtaking $19 billion for training, while DeepSeek's September time-of-day pricing and falling industry token prices make scheduling and per-task cost the new yardstick.

   36氪 人工智能 · 🔥 4
3. 3d
   The global AI compute migration: who is the next Ulanqab?

   A 36Kr analysis traces how AI compute is shifting from tech hubs toward energy-producing regions: as of June, Ulanqab in Inner Mongolia had secured about 12.5GW in data-center capacity commitments, exceeding the 10GW initial US commitment OpenAI announced when it launched Stargate in 2025. The piece cites local data-center power prices of roughly RMB 0.32–0.36 per kWh, close to ten months a year of natural cooling with PUE as low as about 1.1, and more than 75,000P of computing demand served for Beijing customers. It lists Aragon in Spain (Amazon's EUR 33.7bn cumulative investment), Johor in Malaysia, Chiba in Japan (JERA with Dell Technologies and RHAELM, over $15bn), Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and the UAE as contenders, noting the UAE shifted toward distributed and underground facilities after regional conflict. It also mentions Australian AI infrastructure firm Firmus signing a multiyear deal to supply OpenAI with computing from its Malaysia sites.

   36氪 人工智能 · 🔥 0
4. 3d
   Centrin Data's Yang Yu: Chips, not data centers, are AI's bottleneck

   In an interview with China Entrepreneur magazine, Centrin Data executive Yang Yu said today's high compute prices come from a supply-demand mismatch rather than genuine scarcity, and that compute will eventually become as cheap and ubiquitous as electricity or water, with domestic chip progress—not data centers—the real bottleneck for AI. He said China has good power resources but lacks chips, while the US has chips but lacks power, and predicted leading third-party data center operators could reach multi-gigawatt scale by 2030. Yang also warned the sector will "compete itself to death" and that overcapacity may follow the AI boom, noting his company is investing early in Zhongwei, Horinger, Wuwei in Anhui and Changji in Xinjiang, while pursuing green-power direct connection in Ulanqab.

   36氪 人工智能 · 🔥 0

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