As demand for artificial intelligence surges worldwide, China is looking to its renewable energy sector for an advantage in the race to build the data centers that fuel the technology.
Its vast wind, solar and battery industries could help power those facilities with cheaper electricity and bring them online faster by reducing reliance on conventional grid connections.
Envision Energy, the world’s second-largest wind turbine supplier, offers a glimpse of China’s approach. In August, the company began operating a data center campus in Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia, powered by renewable electricity supplied directly to the site. Envision says the facility could become the world’s largest standalone AI data center, with plans to expand beyond 2 gigawatts of capacity. The company also says customers can lock in electricity rates 20 percent below grid prices for a decade.
The project highlights the contrasting strategies China and the United States are pursuing to meet AI’s soaring energy demands. The Trump administration has scrapped a requirement that AI data centers built on federal land be paired with clean energy generation. China is taking a different path, targeting renewable sources for more than 80 percent of the electricity used by new data centers in its major computing hubs.
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