China’s Smart Computing Capacity Surges 2.5x Year-on-Year, NDRC Says
China’s smart computing capacity has reached 188.2 PFLOPS (petaflops) as of the end of March 2026, representing a 2.5-fold increase compared to the same period last year, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) announced at its monthly press conference on Thursday. The milestone underscores the country’s accelerating push to build foundational infrastructure for artificial intelligence.
NDRC Spokesperson Li Chao, Deputy Director of the Policy Research Office, said the rapid growth is expected to continue as China advances the construction of a national integrated computing network. According to The Paper, Li noted that the expansion is being driven by surging demand from AI model training and inference applications.
Context: A Coordinated National Push
The announcement comes amid a sweeping policy drive across multiple government agencies to position computing infrastructure as a strategic national asset. The “East Data West Computing” (东数西算) project, launched in 2022, channels computing resources from data-intensive eastern provinces to resource-rich western regions, similar in ambition to the South-to-North Water Diversion Project.
According to the National Data Administration, the eight national hub nodes now account for over 80% of China’s new computing capacity. As Guangming Net reported, by the end of 2025, China had already built smart computing capacity of approximately 159 PFLOPS, ranking second globally, with over 13.73 million standard racks of computing facilities in use and 42 Wanka (10,000-card) AI computing clusters operational.
Key Developments and Infrastructure Growth
A national-level monitoring and dispatching platform has been connected to 137 PFLOPS of smart computing capacity — roughly 72% of the national total — according to a People’s Daily report published via Youth.cn. The platform enables real-time visibility into computing resource distribution, load levels, and utilization rates across the country.
NDRC National Information Center Director of Computing Economy Guo Mingjun described the approach as one of “intensification,” promoting the large-scale construction and intensive development of diverse computing resources — including general computing, smart computing, and supercomputing — at national hub nodes. This creates a “reservoir” of computing supply for the entire country.
As IT Home reported, citing the Digital China Development Report (2025), China’s internet penetration rate reached 80.1% by the end of 2025, with 457 million users turning to generative AI for answering questions, generating images and videos, or as life assistants. Among all generative AI users, those under 40 account for 74.6%.
Analysis: A Trillion-Level Investment Cycle
National Data Administration Director Liu Liehong has described the computing infrastructure buildout as “another trillion-level investment cycle since the information revolution.” The China Telecom Research Institute estimates that AI will contribute over 11 trillion RMB to China’s GDP by 2035, representing approximately 4-5% of GDP, with computing demand expected to grow 10 to 100 times.
A notable trend is the shift toward inference computing. According to the National Data Administration, inference data volume reached 101.34 exabytes in 2025, exceeding training data volume for the first time. The future inference-to-training computing demand ratio is projected to reach 3:1 or higher, signaling a maturing AI ecosystem where deployed models consume more computing power than those under development.
Green Computing and Energy Synergy
The rapid expansion is also driving a push for green energy integration. As of the end of 2025, the average Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of large-scale computing facilities in China dropped to 1.34, with over 160 facilities achieving green and low-carbon ratings of 4A or above. The first large-scale computing-electricity synergy green power direct supply project — the China Datang Zhongwei 500MW solar plant — was commissioned in May 2026.
“Computing-electricity synergy” was first written into the Chinese Government Work Report on March 5, 2026, elevating it to a national task. With approximately 70% of computing facility operating costs tied to electricity, the integration of green energy is both an environmental and economic imperative.
What’s Next
China’s smart computing capacity grew approximately 18% in just the first quarter of 2026 — from 159 PFLOPS at end of 2025 to 188.2 PFLOPS by end of March. The NDRC expects this high-speed growth trajectory to continue as the “15th Five-Year Plan” includes the national integrated computing network as one of 109 major engineering projects.
Key questions remain: How much of this capacity is powered by domestic AI chips versus imported hardware under US export controls? And can supply keep pace with the explosive demand from China’s rapidly growing AI sector? The answers will shape not only China’s technological trajectory but the global balance of AI computing power.