China outlines vision for four mega data centre clusters (updated)

Greater Bay Area Dynamic Growth Holding

29/12/2021 05:40

(Adds details)
    BEIJING, Dec 29 (Reuters) - China has approved plans to
build four mega clusters of data centres in the country's north
and west with the aim of supporting the data needs of Beijing
and major coastal centres, according to the country's top state
planner on Wednesday.
    The clusters will be built in the northern Inner Mongolia
region, northwestern Ningxia region, Gansu province and
southwestern Guizhou province, the National Development and
Reform Commission said in four separate statements. 
    The four locations can use their energy and environmental
advantages to set up green and low-carbon mega data centres, the
state planner said. 
    The move comes as energy-hungry data centres located in
China's east have found it difficult to expand due to limits
imposed by local governments on electricity consumption.
    Some cities in China's northern and western regions rich in
renewable energy resources such as wind and solar power have
already built data centres to serve the economically developed
coast. 
    But their distant locations have meant the centres have
struggled to provide the near-instantaneous retrieval demanded
by coastal clients with little tolerance for delays.
    It is unclear how China would turn western and northern
regions such as Ningxia and Gansu, which are 1,000 km (600
miles) from the coast, into actively operating centres of
computing power given the data latency caused by the huge
distances to data users in the east.
    A marine economy development plan published on Dec. 14
encouraged major coastal cities such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen and
Zhuhai to relocate high energy-consuming data centres to
underwater locations to cut energy used for cooling.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2SZ1TA  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N2ST0G8
    China aims to expand its big data industry into a more than
3 trillion yuan ($470 billion) sector by 2025 through the
building of several clusters of data centres, according to a
2021-2025 plan by the Ministry of Industry and Information
Technology released in November.
($1 = 6.3714 Chinese yuan renminbi)

 (Reporting by Liangping Gao, Albee Zhang and Ryan Woo; Editing
by Richard Pullin)
 ((Albee.Zhang@thomsonreuters.com;))