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Stephen Chen

As China embraces the coming AI era, a programme to set up a computing power corridor across the country will cover 99 per cent of the nation’s population, according to a key architect of the project.
It is the complete opposite of the United States’ approach.
In the US, most AI computing facilities are being built in northern Virginia, an area which already boasts 70 per cent of the world’s data centres.
Meanwhile China’s corridor, launched earlier this month, has facilities distributed across a wide region, from economically developed coastal areas to the western Gobi Desert, the northern borders to Siberia, and even taking in Tibet.
By 2030, these centres will be linked by high-speed optical fibres, forming a unified network. Even in a smaller city of around 500,000 people, a start-up will be able to leverage a nearby massive computing cluster to process AI tasks with a latency of under three milliseconds – faster than the refresh rate of a smartphone screen.
This approach is obviously more expensive and less convenient than building a centralised hub.
In an article in the journal E-Governance on October 21, Yu Shiyang, director of the Big Data Development Department at the State Information Centre of China, explained the rationale behind this strategy.
First, there is the idea of fairness. The AI revolution risks exacerbating the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. Northern Virginia is already one of the wealthiest regions in America. Of the seven US counties with the highest household income, four are in this area.
“Most of the ultra-large data centres are concentrated in northern Virginia, where tech giants like Microsoft, Google and Meta have set up their bases,” Yu wrote.
China also grapples with economic imbalance, with eastern regions richer than the west.
“Optimising the distribution of computing resources, fostering a balanced digital industry layout and coordinating east-west industrial development can unlock new innovation and growth opportunities in vast regions like the west and northeast,” Yu said.




The second reason is efficiency.
Overly concentrated data centres hinder efficient energy use, particularly green power.
Due to energy shortages, Microsoft even plans to reopen the Three Mile Island nuclear plant not far from Northern Virginia, despite the nuclear meltdown which took place there in 1979.
According to a map in Yu’s article, China’s computing power corridor aligns closely with its ultra-high-voltage transmission network.
This ensures abundant power supply, including wind and solar energy from the Gobi and other deserts.
Some US industry insiders envy this.
“There are calls from them to learn from China,” Yu wrote.
Higher voltage means longer electricity transmission. Last year, China built more than 40,000km of high-voltage grids, some reaching 1,100 kilovolts in capacity. In contrast, the US built less than 1 per cent of that length, with a maximum voltage of 345 kilovolts.
Decentralised facilities could also be also safer, Yu said.
Northern Virginia’s proximity to the ocean poses risks. Some US security experts warn of potential destruction from natural disasters or attacks.
China has chosen lower-risk western regions as a strategic hinterland for its computing power corridor, according to Yu.
“Building data centres in strategically deep regions like Guizhou, Xinjiang and Tibet, which are remote and far from economic centres, reduces geopolitical security risks and enhances resilience and risk resistance in extreme situations,” he wrote.
China is ramping up R&D efforts to bring this megaproject to life.
Last year, the United States accounted for 32 per cent of global computing power, ranking first worldwide.
China ranked second with a share of around 26 per cent, in part due to US sanctions.


But China’s AI chip manufacturing is rapidly growing, thanks to the efforts of hi-tech companies such as Huawei Technologies.
These companies are also breaking world records in long-distance, large-capacity data transmission.
By June this year, data exchange latency between China’s east and west was reduced to 20 milliseconds, supporting large-scale AI training and task processing, according to Yu.
This has allowed Chinese companies to surpass the US in certain commercial applications.
For instance, while OpenAI’s Sora remains in the lab, some Chinese companies already offer similar text-to-video services to global users.
The impact of China’s computing power corridor will be felt around the world, according to Yu.
“High-capacity computing channels will be extended to countries and regions along the ‘belt and road’ in the future,” he wrote, referring to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
“We will fully leverage the regional advantages of Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, Inner Mongolia and other regions to export computing resources to Central Asia, West Asia and the Middle East.
“We will also promote regions such as Chongqing, Guizhou, Yunnan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan and others to provide computing supply services to South Asia and Southeast Asia, and guide northeastern regions such as Heilongjiang to export computing capabilities to Northeast Asia.”


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China aims to set up a computing power corridor across the country covering 99 per cent of the nation’s population, according to a key architect of the project. Photo: Shutterstock

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China

China’s hi-tech corridor is designed to send computer signals across the country, while America has gone in a different direction


China’s hi-tech corridor is designed to send computer signals across the country, while America has gone in a different direction.


Artificial intelligence

China technology

Technology

US-China tech war