China's State Council Executive Meeting Advances Computing-Power Coordination and Grid Integration

The State Council executive meeting proposed advancing computing-power coordination and computing-network integration, strengthening the planning alignment of computing and power facilities, and accelerating the implementation of projects such as green power direct connection and source-grid-load-storage. As artificial intelligence accelerates from technological breakthroughs toward industrial application, demand for computing power is growing rapidly, and electricity has become a key factor supporting the development of the digital economy. New scenarios including large-model training, smart manufacturing, autonomous driving, and the industrial internet are continuously expanding, generating greater demand for high-quality computing power and imposing higher requirements on the scale, stability, and green level of electricity supply.

Computing-power coordination, through coordinated planning, coordinated construction, and coordinated dispatch, integrates the two types of resources—computing power and electricity—and improves the efficiency of resource allocation. At present, this coordination is moving from "supplying power to computing" toward "two-way interaction between computing and power": on the one hand, leveraging advantages in clean energy such as wind, solar, and hydro to convert more green electricity into green computing power and reduce the energy consumption and carbon emissions of computing development; on the other hand, using the temporal and spatial transferability of certain computing tasks to flexibly adjust tasks according to changes in renewable energy output and electricity prices. The role of data centers is accordingly shifting from a pure electricity load to a new type of resource participating in power system regulation.

Local exploration has already produced practices of a certain scale. Zhangjiakou in Hebei is exploring aggregated green power supply, operating multiple wind and solar farms in coordination with computing centers, with green power accounting for more than 30% of the electricity used by computing enterprises. Horinger in Inner Mongolia, relying on integrated wind-solar-storage and direct green power supply, is promoting the coordinated layout of green energy, computing infrastructure, and related industries.

Computing-power coordination still needs improvement at the institutional level. In some places, computing plans and new energy plans are insufficiently aligned, and project construction shows a phenomenon of "each keeping its own accounts"; some data centers still rely mainly on rigid electricity use, and the capacity for flexible load regulation has not been fully tapped; mechanisms such as green power trading, green certificate accounting, and cross-regional computing dispatch still need to be further smoothed.

In terms of layout, computing demand, grid carrying capacity, and new energy resource conditions are taken into overall consideration, with computing power directed to regions with favorable energy conditions, strong network foundations, and solid application demand. In terms of operation, the improvement of electricity price signals and computing dispatch mechanisms includes encouraging data centers to participate in demand response, green power trading, and ancillary services to enhance load adjustability. The alignment of cross-regional computing trading, green power trading, and green certificate mechanisms, as well as multi-year green power trading contracts and green power direct connection models, are all under exploration and advancement. The related coordination involves upstream and downstream links including servers, liquid cooling, energy storage, energy management, and artificial intelligence applications.