Ulanqab in Inner Mongolia is becoming one of China’s key hubs for AI infrastructure as cloud providers and model companies move from renting compute to controlling it more directly. In a field visit reported by Phoenix Tech, Alibaba Cloud showcased its modular 5.0 containerized data center design in the city, saying the facility now carries 80% of its intelligent computing workloads. The company’s data center chief Wang Chaoyang said no GPU cards are sitting idle and argued that delivery speed has become a direct measure of customer value. The report places DeepSeek at the center of the shift. The company has started large-scale hiring in Ulanqab and plans to build a super-large intelligent computing center there with total power of 1 gigawatt. Local government data cited in the article says Ulanqab had signed 84 data center projects by the end of 2025, including 81 intelligent computing centers, with total investment above 500 billion yuan. Cheap electricity, a 90% green power mix, 4 millisecond network latency, cool weather and proximity to Beijing are turning the city into a preferred site for large-scale training clusters. The report also argues that the next bottleneck is no longer only chips, but power delivery, water usage and the ability to industrialize data center construction through standardized modular systems.

DeepSeek V4 preview launches with free million-token context while OpenAI's GPT-5.5 charges sky-high fees. Behind the pricing gap: heavy-asset transformation, $44B valuation funding, talent poaching, power infrastructure advantages, and edge/open-source strategies.

Nasdaq-listed crypto mining company Ebang International said its subsidiary has won an industrial land parcel in Xinghe County, Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia, where it plans to build a production base for high-efficiency amorphous and nanocrystalline new materials.