In the desert outside Zhongwei, in the northwestern region of Ningxia, four dedicated power lines now run from a field of solar panels to a cluster of computers.
They do not pass through the public grid. That detail, dull as it sounds, is the whole point.
China is encouraging its sprawling data centre industry to plug directly into wind and solar generation, rather than draw power off a grid still heavily fed by coal. The push is part policy, part demonstration.
Beijing’s 2026 government work report named tighter integration between computing infrastructure and electricity supply as a priority, and a national green-data-centre plan now requires new projects in the country’s designated computing hubs to source most of their power from clean sources.
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!The Zhongwei plant is the project everyone points to. China Datang Corp commissioned a 500-megawatt solar farm there, describing it as the country’s first large-scale green-power project built to supply a data centre cluster directly.
