The 1GW benchmark is rapidly emerging as the new competitive threshold in the global artificial intelligence infrastructure race. In recent years, the focus of the AI industry's competition has centered on chips, models, and algorithms. However, as large language models progress into the phases of large-scale training and commercial application, the market is uncovering a more fundamental reality: the truly scarce resources in the AI era are not just GPUs, but the power, land, and computing infrastructure capable of supporting massive GPU operations.
This explains why the world's leading technology companies are now engaged in a new round of competition centered on gigawatt-scale computing resources. Currently, the firms capable of competing at this scale are primarily concentrated among AI giants, cloud computing behemoths, and specialized AI infrastructure companies. The message behind this landscape is clear: globally, GW-level AI infrastructure has become the new battleground for top-tier tech enterprises.
OpenAI's proposed Stargate project is planned to reach a scale of 10GW; Meta is deploying 5GW-level AI data centers; CoreWeave is establishing its position with GW-scale AI infrastructure. Collectively, these initiatives demonstrate that the core of future AI competition has extended beyond mere software and chips to encompass control over energy, computing power, and infrastructure resources. The participants behind these projects are among the world's most capital-rich and industrially influential technology companies.
ITC PROPERTIES' plan for the 1GW green AI computing center at Yangkou Port represents securing an entry point into the industry at this very scale, precisely as global AI infrastructure enters the era of GW-level competition. In the Chinese market, leading computing infrastructure firms like GDS Services Limited and Chindata Group have gradually amassed GW-level computing resources through years of investment and multi-regional deployment.
The unique aspect of ITC PROPERTIES' Yangkou Port project lies in its planning stage, which directly targets a single-site IT load capacity of approximately 1GW. Coupled with the advantages of offshore wind power, a green electricity system, and LNG cold energy, this secures an extremely scarce entry point for green AI computing infrastructure.
The driving force behind this is a Hong Kong-listed company – ITC PROPERTIES (00199).
From the Global AI Giants' Competitive Scale to a Green Computing Hub in the Yangtze River Delta
According to an announcement from ITC PROPERTIES, the company has entered into a Memorandum of Cooperation for the Investment and Construction of the Yangkou Port Green Intelligent Computing Center with the Management Committee of the Jiangsu Rudong Yangkou Port Economic Development Zone. The parties plan to leverage the regional advantages of Yangkou Port to collaborate on investment and construction in green artificial intelligence computing infrastructure, computing resource operation platforms, and related supporting industries.
The most market-noteworthy detail is the project's overall planned IT load capacity of 1GW. The plan is to develop the project in phases over approximately five years, following a "master planning, phased implementation, rolling deployment, and market-oriented operation" approach. The first phase involves planning a roughly 200MW green AI computing center.
This signifies that ITC PROPERTIES is not merely entering a standard IDC project, but is stepping into the new competitive scale being established for global AI infrastructure. In the AI era, the truly challenging task is not purchasing servers. GPUs and equipment can be bought. However, securing an infrastructure entry point capable of supporting GW-scale computing development requires pre-emptive access to energy resources, land space, power conditions, policy coordination, and an industrial ecosystem.
This is why global GW-level AI infrastructure is currently primarily held by entities like OpenAI, Meta, CoreWeave, and large data center operators.
From Acquiring Land Resources in Rudong to Government Strategic Cooperation: A Once-Doubted AI Blueprint is Materializing
In reality, the value of ITC PROPERTIES' project is not solely in the 1GW figure itself. More importantly, this number represents the formation of a complete resource system. Previously, when ITC PROPERTIES acquired a 20% stake in PYI Investment Holdings Limited, the market focused on a core question: could regional land resources truly be transformed into AI infrastructure value?
This is because the capital market is not short on AI concepts; what is truly scarce are platforms capable of translating AI concepts into tangible energy, land, and industrial infrastructure. The strategic cooperation with the Nantong Rudong Yangkou Port Economic Development Zone sends an even clearer signal.
The announcement indicates that the cooperation scope includes investment and construction of green AI computing infrastructure, computing resource operation platforms, computing product management, and related customer services. Simultaneously, the Yangkou Port Economic Development Zone intends to coordinate support for project site selection, land and supporting facilities, energy allocation, grid connection, green power trading, industrial resource introduction, and inter-departmental government coordination.
For a large-scale project involving GW-level energy allocation and long-term industrial planning, the formal participation of a local industrial platform itself serves as crucial validation of the project's resource foundation and implementation certainty.
The True Value of Yangkou Port: Not Just a Data Center Location, But a New Infrastructure Node Fusing Energy and AI
Why Yangkou Port? The answer is not just land. Competition for data centers in the AI era is fundamentally evolving into energy competition. Those with more stable, greener, and larger-scale energy supply are better positioned to host the next generation of the AI industry. Yangkou Port's greatest advantage lies in possessing the resource portfolio required to build green AI infrastructure.
The announcement shows the parties plan to promote the construction of a green energy system, including offshore wind power, photovoltaics, energy storage, green power trading, direct green power connections, and integrated source-grid-load-storage systems. More significantly, the local government will coordinate support for over 1GW of wind power installed capacity.
This means the future project not only has room for computing power expansion but also possesses the energy foundation to match large-scale green computing development. As the global AI industry places increasing emphasis on green energy and carbon efficiency, green power capability is becoming a new competitive barrier for computing infrastructure.
LNG Cold Energy Advantage Gives Yangkou Port Unique Potential Unmatched by Other Computing Bases
Beyond green power, Yangkou Port holds special advantages from the energy industry, being home to the nation's largest offshore LNG (liquefied natural gas) energy island – the Yangkou Port Sunshine Island in Rudong, Jiangsu – which hosts the largest cluster of offshore LNG receiving terminals. LNG releases substantial cold energy resources during storage and regasification.
Previously, this cold energy was often a byproduct in the energy supply chain. However, as AI data centers' demand for efficient cooling continuously rises, LNG cold energy is demonstrating new industrial value. ITC PROPERTIES' announcement explicitly proposes researching the use of Yangkou Port's LNG receiving terminal cold energy resources for the computing center's cooling systems.
This indicates that Yangkou Port is exploring not simple data center construction, but the deep integration of energy infrastructure with AI computing infrastructure. This model connects green energy, energy efficiency, and computing power demand, aligning with the development direction of the next generation of global AI infrastructure.
The True Value Behind 1GW: What ITC PROPERTIES Gains is Not Just a Computing Center, But a NeoCloud Foundation
The market needs to reassess the value of the 1GW green AI computing base; it extends beyond constructing a large-scale facility. It represents a scarce infrastructure asset. Why can only a handful of companies globally compete at the GW level? Because what is truly scarce is the energy system, land resources, and industrial coordination capacity capable of supporting GW-level computing demand.
This is also the key distinction between AI infrastructure and traditional IDC. Traditional IDC primarily addresses "storage and hosting." Future AI infrastructure tackles large model training, inference services, enterprise-grade AI computing, and global computing power scheduling. ITC PROPERTIES' announcement also clearly outlines plans for cooperation focusing on large model training and inference, enterprise high-performance computing, cloud computing, data processing, and computing power scheduling.
This means the 1GW computing foundation provides a critical entry point for ITC PROPERTIES' future development of a NeoCloud platform. The future business model can extend from computing infrastructure construction to computing operations, AI cloud services, and global customer service.
The Most Scarce Resource in the AI Era is the Ability to Orchestrate Resources
The global AI competition is entering the infrastructure era. OpenAI is building a 10GW-scale supercomputing system. Meta is deploying 5GW-level AI data centers. CoreWeave has seen its market valuation reassessed through its computing infrastructure. Chinese large-scale computing enterprises have built major computing bases through years of accumulation.
What ITC PROPERTIES has secured is an AI infrastructure entry point located in the core Yangtze River Delta region, equipped with green energy support and possessing GW-level expansion capability. The significance behind this is not merely a single project. It signifies a company acquiring the most scarce capability in the AI era: the ability to organize land, electricity, energy, capital, technology, and industrial demand.
The 1GW green AI computing base at Yangkou Port formally marks ITC PROPERTIES' accelerated evolution from a traditional asset investment platform towards a global AI infrastructure and NeoCloud platform.
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