Inside Ulanqab, the city that became an AI compute hub
A Huashang Taolue feature republished by TMTPost traces how Ulanqab in Inner Mongolia, once known for potatoes, wind power and summer resorts, became a destination for AI data centers. It says that as of August 2026 the city had signed 109 compute projects with 172,000 P of capacity in operation, more than 95% of it intelligent compute, and over 500 billion yuan in total investment; DeepSeek plans to add 1GW of capacity there, part of it due to come online between late 2027 and early 2028. The piece attributes the draw for Huawei, Alibaba, Apple, ByteDance and Kuaishou to cheap green power at roughly 0.32 yuan per kWh, an average temperature of 4.3°C that allows a PUE below 1.2, and latency of under 5 milliseconds to Beijing.
Citing a Goldman Sachs report, the article describes Ulanqab as one of Asia-Pacific's largest and fastest-growing AI compute clusters, with about 12.5GW of data center capacity commitments as of June 2026 versus 3.3GW a year earlier, a sign China is converting western power resources into compute supply.
（本文作者为 华商韬略，钛媒体经授权发布）
文 | 华商韬略
23岁的陈刚，家在内蒙古乌兰察布察右后旗。那里的人世世代代种土豆，年轻人大多外出打工，他也去过青岛，在酒店当服务员。
如今，他回到家乡，每天巡检电力、制冷和机房设备，刚刚通过考核，升任一座数据中心的楼栋值班长，还在读专升本，学电气工程及自动化。
距他不远， DeepSeek计划在这里新增1GW算力，部分将在2027年底至2028年初投入运行；乌兰察布给自己定下的目标，是2026年算力产业营收突破80亿元。
向西几百公里，呼和浩特要在2028年建成10座“词元工厂”、词元产业营收破千亿；再往西，甘肃庆阳的黄土塬上，玉米地变成了数据中心，目标是“十五五”末机架、算力“双30万”。
#Ulanqab#DeepSeek#Huawei#Alibaba#Apple#ByteDance#Kuaishou#Goldman Sachs#Inner Mongolia#GDS