Beijing bets its clean power surplus can win the AI race

The global AI race is usually framed as a fight over chips, talent, and models. Beijing is placing a big bet on a less glamorous input: electricity. According to Bloomberg, China aims to use its abundant clean energy to gain dominance in AI. China added more power-generation capacity from 2022 to 2025 than the entire US power system. That is not a comparison to one year of US additions. It is a comparison to the whole US grid. Moving the computers to the power The centerpiece of the strategy is a government program called “East Data, West Computing.” Demand for data sits in China’s crowded eastern cities. The cheap electricity sits out west. Instead of hauling all that power east, Beijing wants to move the computing toward the power. China’s western regions are rich in solar, wind, and hydropower. Data centers placed there can, in theory, run AI workloads on cheaper and cleaner electricity. China has set up eight national computing hubs and 10 data-center clusters. These designated zones are meant to spread computing resources across regions in a way that matches where electricity is plentiful and affordable. New data centers must source over 80% of their electricity from clean sou...