According to BloombergNEF, more than half of China's new data center projects under construction or in planning are concentrated in the northern and northwestern regions, including Inner Mongolia. By 2028, these areas are expected to surpass traditional hubs like Beijing and Shanghai as the largest computing power supply region. By 2030, they will account for about one-third of the country's total operational data center IT capacity. The shift is driven by cheaper land and electricity, as well as cooler climates suitable for cooling. AI companies such as DeepSeek and Zhipu are building large data centers there. However, not all computing power will relocate westward. Latency-sensitive tasks like autonomous driving will remain close to eastern users, while training and cloud storage favor the west.
China’s new AI computing power is bunching up in the north and northwest, going by BloombergNEF’s latest data. More than half of the country’s data center projects now being built or still on the drawing board sit in those regions, Inner Mongolia included.
BNEF says that by 2028, those areas will overtake old-line hubs such as Beijing and Shanghai to become the biggest source of computing power. And by 2030, northern and northwestern China is projected to make up about one-third of the country’s total operating data center IT capacity.
The draw is pretty plain: cheaper land, cheaper electricity, and weather that works better for cooling. So AI companies including DeepSeek and Zhipu are putting up large data centers there.
But don’t expect all computing power to shift west. Latency-insensitive work—model training and cloud storage, for example—fits the west better. Latency-sensitive uses, though, like autonomous driving, still need to stay near users in the east.
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