China Data Center Strategy Hubs | Generated by AI

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Question: Where are the other major data center locations in China?

Answer:

China’s data center infrastructure follows a clear strategic pattern via the “East Data, West Computing” program launched in 2022 — a national strategy to redistribute computing workloads from energy-strained eastern cities to energy-rich, lower-cost western regions.

The Official Eight Computing Hubs (2022):

Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Inner Mongolia, the Yangtze River Delta (Shanghai and neighboring provinces), Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Chengdu-Chongqing, Guizhou, Gansu, and Ningxia.

Eastern Tier-1 Hubs (saturated, expensive, low-latency workloads):

Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Chengdu are among the largest and most important cities for data center infrastructure. These dominate because:

Western Growth Hubs (cheap power, abundant land, batch workloads):

Locations such as Gui’an (Guizhou), Zhongwei (Ningxia), and Hohhot (Inner Mongolia) offer abundant land, favorable climate for natural cooling, and access to large-scale renewable power sources.

Notable: Qingyang in Gansu has emerged as one of the country’s premier data center hubs, with 31,000 standard server racks deployed by end of 2024, boasting 50,000 petaflops of computing power.

The Economic Logic:

Local governments offer favorable land policies, tax rebates, and energy access guarantees to attract hyperscale operators.

Recent Shifts (2024-2025):

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology now requires large data centers to maintain PUE below 1.3 and use at least 30% renewable energy in eastern regions. This pushes further consolidation westward.

For AI training (like DeepSeek), the west is ideal: cheap MW-scale power, no latency constraints, policy subsidies.

References:

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