Ding Xuexiang tours data centers to push compute buildout

Beijing is prioritizing the buildout of its self-sufficient data center "grid".

In mid-May, Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang visited data centers across Beijing, Hebei, and Inner Mongolia to inspect progress on China's National Unified Computing Power Network (NUCPN), a state-led push to build data centers across the country.

Ding made clear that he wants a self-sufficient compute stack:

• "[We] should persist in self-reliance..., accelerate breakthroughs on critical technical bottlenecks..., and push domestic software and hardware from merely ‘usable’ to truly ‘easy to use’ as quickly as possible."

What caught our eye: Ding’s visit revealed new details about Inner Mongolia's compute buildout plans.

• Notably, the region plans to invest a total of RMB 731.1 billion in computing infrastructure (CCTV).

Some context:

• Inner Mongolia currently has 277 EFLOPS of AI compute, roughly 17% of the national total.
• That's roughly the size of xAI’s entire Colossus 1 campus in Memphis, recently leased to Anthropic (CCTV and China Daily).

Get smart: Projects already in operation account for just 7.46% of that planned investment. That means Inner Mongolia alone is planning for a more than 10x expansion in compute infrastructure over the coming years.

• We don't think this plan assumes access to Nvidia chips. If so, Beijing is effectively betting that China’s advanced chip capacity can scale fast enough to support a massive compute buildout.

Get smarter: The state has repeatedly cautioned local officials not to wastefully over-build low-quality data centers.

• Will large provincial capacity expansions conflict with those orders?