China Shifts Computing Capacity From Eastern Cities to Western Regions

China launched the national computing infrastructure program known as East Data West Computing in 2022. Inner Mongolia is one of eight national computing hub nodes designated by China, alongside the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Chengdu-Chongqing, Guizhou, Gansu and Ningxia. Under the plan, eastern cities will handle computing demand that is extremely sensitive to latency, while work that can be done farther from users, such as cloud storage or model training, moves west. Ulanqab, in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, sits within China's shift of computing capacity from large eastern cities to the western region. The west offers vast space and low-cost green energy.

A research report published on September 8, 2026 showed that more than half of China's newly built and planned data center projects are located in northern and northwestern regions, including Inner Mongolia. These areas offer lower-cost electricity, cooler weather and more abundant land. Ulanqab lies about 350 kilometers northwest of Beijing. At lunchtime on a Friday, workers walked from a data center construction site east of Ulanqab's urban area to an intersection, where clusters of buildings stand nearby. Wearing safety helmets, the workers gathered beside a row of food trucks selling meals, beer and cigarettes.

A woman running a stall at the intersection said hundreds of workers pass by every day. She sells them items including chicken and tofu skin. Before the data center projects arrived, Ulanqab was known as a summer resort. Today, aluminum frames, steel rebar and wooden boards are piled on open ground, cranes appear on the skyline, and workers labor on tall building frames amid flying sparks. The Chahar High-Tech Industrial Development Zone has wide roads named after companies including Apple and Huawei.