China hopes to power AI boom with green energy in new data centre strategy
Beijing’s new plan links data centres to renewables as power demand from high-end computing surges
To fuel its growing AI sector and computing prowess, China is integrating the development of power-hungry data centres into its national energy strategy.
Under a new action plan released on Wednesday, Beijing would coordinate data centre planning with energy infrastructure in areas and regions rich in new energy resources, to meet the surging electricity demands of high-performance computing facilities.
“We will focus on national hub nodes and resource-abundant non-hub regions such as Qinghai, Xinjiang and Heilongjiang, coordinating existing and new data centre demand for green electricity with local renewable energy capacity,” China’s National Energy Administration said.
To ease pressure on electricity grids during peak hours, innovative technologies would be used to forecast consumption and renewable generation in real time, enabling data centres to use energy more flexibly, according to the plan.
On the same day, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology held a meeting to discuss efforts to advance artificial intelligence and hi-tech manufacturing. “While nurturing major AI firms, we also need to support smaller, specialised companies,” the ministry said.
Power demand for AI computing could grow 43 per cent in 2025 compared to the previous year, according to a February report from the International Data Corporation (IDC) and Inspur Information.