China wants to win the AI race on its own hardware. A new plan shows just how much it is willing to spend, and how far it will go to cut American chips out of the picture.
Beijing is drafting a blueprint to spend around 2 trillion yuan ($295bn) over the next five years building a national network of AI data centres, according to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter.
The plan, led by the powerful National Development and Reform Commission, would knit the country’s scattered computing facilities into a single, interconnected grid by 2028, mostly operated by state telecoms giants China Mobile and China Telecom.
The most pointed detail is what those data centres would run on. The blueprint calls for local suppliers, including Huawei, to provide at least 80 per cent of the core technology, AI chips included, effectively squeezing out Nvidia and AMD.
It is a deliberate echo of the campaigns that built national champions like Huawei in the past, now aimed at replacing US technology across the AI stack and closing the gap with American labs.The 💜 of EU techThe latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!
