China’s electricity consumption for computing infrastructure is expected to increase by more than 100 billion kilowatt-hours annually from 2026 to 2030, reaching 800 billion kWh by 2030, or approximately 6 percent of the country’s total electricity consumption, which exceeds 10 trillion kWh. The projection was announced by Tan Hongjiang, deputy director of the National Energy Administration’s Electricity Department, at an October 30 press briefing.
In 2025, China’s data centers consumed 170 billion kWh, accounting for 1.6 percent of national electricity use. Electricity consumption at the country’s eight national computing hubs has grown by an average of 39.5 percent annually over the past three years. Meanwhile, China’s intelligent computing capacity reached 2,592 EFLOPS by the end of September, up 146 percent year over year, reflecting surging demand driven by artificial intelligence.
To address the growing demand, Beijing is promoting “computing-power and electricity coordination,” integrating computing infrastructure with power systems to optimize resource allocation and match computing workloads with electricity availability.
The initiative was included in the 2026 government work report and the 15th Five-Year Plan. Pilot projects are underway in Guizhou, Guangdong, and Jiangsu. On October 28, Yangzhou, Jiangsu, launched the country’s first city-level coordination platform, linking computing demand with renewable energy supply and electricity prices to encourage companies to shift flexible workloads to periods when green power is more abundant and cheaper.
The National Energy Administration plans to expand such coordination, including through direct connections between computing facilities and renewable energy sources.
Source: People’s Daily, November 3, 2026
http://finance.people.com.cn/n1/2026/1103/c1004-40826671.html