A new wave of computing infrastructure is being powered by green energy, as 37 companies from Beijing have entered into collaborative agreements with Zhangjiakou to develop its green computing capabilities.
The recent Beijing-Zhangjiakou Digital Industry Cooperation Exchange Conference served as a platform for this significant partnership. Zhangjiakou's substantial installed capacity for new energy power generation, exceeding 45,010 megawatts last year, and its widespread adoption of green electricity in data centers, attracted major firms like Zhipu AI, iSoftStone, and Glodon to the event. The participating companies expressed strong confidence in the region's potential for green computing development, reaching initial cooperation agreements covering areas such as computing services, data services, and industrial transformation. These agreements span diverse sectors including intelligent computing leasing, AI data annotation, and the construction of industrial internet platforms.
Computing Power as a New Economic Driver
In the era of the digital economy, computing power represents a new form of productivity and a cornerstone of artificial intelligence. However, it is also a highly energy-intensive industry facing significant challenges in reducing carbon emissions. Data indicates that the electricity cost for training a single large AI model can often reach millions, or even tens of millions, of yuan.
Zhangjiakou's Green Advantage
At the conference, Liu Yonggang, Director of the Zhangjiakou Big Data and Government Affairs Administration, highlighted the city's key strength for developing the computing industry: a consistent and abundant supply of green electricity. As the nation's sole national-level demonstration zone for renewable energy, Zhangjiakou continues to lead in non-hydro renewable energy development nationwide, giving it a distinct advantage in fostering green computing.
"China has initiated pilot programs for computing-electricity coordination and green data centers, guiding the green design of computing infrastructure across its entire lifecycle and promoting green technology innovation in core areas like computing, storage, and networking. The green transformation of the digital economy has become a clear trend," Liu stated. Leveraging its rich green power resources and its role as a core node in the national 'East Data, West Computing' project's Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei hub, Zhangjiakou is accelerating the integration of computing and electricity. This allows new computing infrastructure to harness green energy, tackling carbon reduction challenges at the source and creating greater development space. Consequently, a group of enterprises have become leaders in green computing.
Currently, the Tencent Computing Center in Zhangjiakou is powered 100% by green electricity. Seven projects, including the Alibaba Miaotan Computing Center, have been included in the national list of green computing centers. Companies like Zhongming Technology and Heying Data have been recognized as national demonstrations for computing-electricity coordination. Furthermore, four computing center projects operated by ChinData, Zhangbei Yunlian, Zhangbei Rongtai, and Zhongming Energy have been approved as demonstration projects for direct green power connections.
A Major AI Computing Hub
After five years of construction, the first phase of the Heying Data (Huailai) Technology Industrial Park, a large-scale AI computing cluster in North China, was fully operational by the end of last year. The park currently has an operational IT capacity of 700 megawatts, deploying over 200,000 servers and more than 250,000 standard racks. It is fully equipped to handle the overflow of real-time computing demand from Beijing's internet, finance, and AI training sectors. The park's model for integrating computing and power was selected as one of the first batch of exemplary cases by the National Data Administration, with some projects achieving a 100% green electricity usage rate.
Lü Zhiyong, the head of the Heying Data park, explained that the project achieves a large-scale, local integration with new energy power stations in Zhangjiakou, overcoming energy supply limitations at the source. When renewable power generation is unstable, the data center can draw power from energy storage projects. Relying on intelligent dispatch within a "source-grid-load-storage" system enables precise matching and a symbiotic relationship between green power and computing demand. As the largest "source-grid-load-storage" integrated carbon-neutral demonstration project in the Beijing surrounding region, the industrial park also collaborated with think tanks and industry partners to release the "Data Center Full Lifecycle Green Computing Index White Paper." This provides a quantifiable and actionable implementation path for the green transformation of data centers.
Driving Growth Through Integration
Building on its resource advantages, Zhangjiakou continues to deepen the integration of computing and electricity. The city is guiding data centers to participate in green power trading, promoting the construction of integrated "source-grid-load-storage" systems, and vigorously advocating for new models of aggregated green power supply. In 2025, the city's data centers consumed 2.523 billion kilowatt-hours of green electricity, a year-on-year increase of 42%. The total output value of the digital economy has exceeded 85 billion yuan, with a growth rate surpassing 20%.
"During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, Zhangjiakou will accelerate the integrated development of computing power and electric power, speeding up the construction of computing center clusters supported by new energy," Liu Yonggang explained. The city plans to guide the layout of computing centers in counties and districts rich in renewable energy, increase support for direct green power connections, and encourage long-term power purchase agreements between computing centers and new energy power generation enterprises to ensure stable green power supply. The goal is to ensure that over 80% of the electricity used in newly built computing centers comes from green sources, driving the simultaneous development of computing and power generation.
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