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hina’s data center buildout involves an intricate network of technology companies, state-owned telecom carriers, specialist operators, local governments and energy suppliers. Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance generate demand; companies such as GDS, VNET, Chindata and ZData build and operate large campuses; and government money enters through several channels. Using WireScreen’s corporate records, this briefing traces who finances, builds and owns the infrastructure, and compares China’s expansion with that of American companies.
What we measure. Four different things: capital spending, physical data center capacity, computing capacity, and cloud or compute access. They cannot be added together. A company may own a building, lease computing from someone else, buy servers for another operator’s campus, or sell cloud services from many sites.
China is the second-largest user of data center electricity …
Share of global data center electricity use, 2024. Each square is 1%.
U.S.ChinaRest of world
IEA, Energy and AI (2025) [1] for the 2024 shares; Key Questions on Energy and AI (2026) [2] for 2025 and 2030 demand. Electricity is a measure of scale, not of AI capability.
… but U.S. hyperscalers spend on a different scale
Latest disclosed capital spending, US$ billions. Periods differ, so the bars are not a ratio. Company totals are global and include assets other than data centers. These are infrastructure owners; compute customers such as OpenAI are not shown.
U.S. companyChinese companyGuidance range
Company filings and guidance [4, 7, 8, 30–33]. Microsoft’s ~$175bn is its latest calendar-2026 guidance, lowered from ~$190bn after more future data center leases were classed as operating rather than finance leases [32]. Alibaba’s dollar figure is its own; GDS + VNET converted at an illustrative RMB7 per dollar.
State carriers are shifting capital into computing
Reported AI computing resources, EFLOPS (FP16), mid-2026. Company definitions differ: own, rented and accessed capacity are mixed. Computing took 48% of China Telecom’s and 37% of China Unicom’s first-half capital spending; China Mobile budgets about 28% of its 2026 capex for computing networks [93].
Own capacity or reported amountIncludes rented or accessed capacity
Company interim results, Aug. 2026 [49–51]. China Mobile includes rented capacity; China Telecom includes 'accessed' capacity, of which 24.8 EFLOPS is its own. Computing capex: China Telecom 48% of first-half capex; China Unicom 37%; China Mobile 2026 budget RMB37.8bn of RMB136.6bn [93].
Who is financing China’s buildout
Technology companies and state carriers both invest; government money enters through programs and project stakes. No public source divides the total among them.
Disclosed capital spending, RMB billions
Company-disclosedReported plan, not disclosed by the company
Alibaba [4]; Tencent [52]; Baidu [53]; China Mobile and China Telecom [49, 50]; China Mobile 2026 budget [93]; ByteDance, as reported by the South China Morning Post [54]. Periods differ by group. Company capex covers servers, chips and other assets, not only buildings, and includes spending abroad. State-owned company capex is corporate investment, not government budget spending. Do not add these: a tenant’s servers and its landlord’s building can be two budgets for one campus.
The scale of China’s data center investment: plans, spending and financing
Selected disclosures, 2024–2026, US$ billions (log scale: each step multiplies). Figures overlap and are not additive.
Plan or commitmentActual spendingAnnual guidanceFinancing raisedFinancing approvedAcquisition
Sources in brackets. Renminbi figures are shown in dollars at an illustrative RMB7 per dollar, and Hong Kong dollars at HK$7.8, except where the issuer or the cited report gave its own dollar amount; the $295bn is Bloomberg’s conversion (≈$286bn at RMB7). The hubs’ RMB43.5bn is direct investment through June 2024; the same release reports more than RMB200bn of investment driven by hub construction, and the two overlap [5]. The HK$80bn placement is financing that may fund the RMB380bn commitment, so the two Alibaba figures should not be added. These disclosures show the scale of selected investments and transactions; they are not an estimate of total Chinese data center investment. The AIIB approved a potential equity investment of up to $35 million in ZData Intelligent valley Limited as part of ZData’s Series C; it is an approved maximum, not a disbursement. The precise ownership chain connecting that vehicle to ZData’s Chinese operating companies has not been independently verified [98]. A financing facility is money available, not money spent; an acquisition buys existing campuses rather than new ones.
Where China is building
Eight national computing hubs and ten official clusters, with the disclosed sites of companies in this briefing
Disclosed data center sites and company locations · click a marker
Official national clusterMajor demand centerCompany site, operatingUnder constructionPlanned or announcedDisclosed location, stage unverifiedProvince hosting a national hub
NDRC (2022) [13]; National Data Administration (2024) [14]; company disclosures [23–27, 38–40, 42, 74]; AtHub project companies from the WireScreen record [46]; Chindata’s campus regions from its website [55]; Envision [62, 65]; ZData locations from the company description in the WireScreen record and from AIIB [98, 100]. Site status [78–88]. Site lists are selected examples, not complete; status describes the company’s facility in that city. ZData locations are drawn from company descriptions: campus ownership, operating status and exact coordinates have not been verified for each location.
The eight hubs
Four are centered on China’s largest computing-demand regions. Four western hubs are meant to use cheaper land, energy and a cooler climate.
Official investment in the hubs through June 2024: more than RMB43.5 billion direct and more than RMB200 billion in construction-driven investment. The categories overlap. [5]
Who pays, who builds, who owns
A campus’s owner, its builder and its main compute customer can be three different companies
Documented relationships · choose a view
Shanghai AtHub (数据港)
WireScreen network-risk flags (2)
Government enterprise involvementXinjiang supply chain exposure
Exposure labels; they can arise through related entities or customers.
98.3%of 2025 main-business revenue from one unnamed internet group and its affiliates
12wholly owned project companies, most named for their site
33.0%ultimate economic ownership by Shanghai's Jing'an District government, which is also the actual controller
A district government is the largest ultimate owner; one internet group supplies nearly all the revenue. AtHub's website names Alibaba as a customer, but the annual report does not name the 98.3% customer. The registry maps the campuses through their project companies, from Zhangbei and Ulanqab to Heyuan.
WireScreen record, updated Oct. 2026 [46]; AtHub 2025 annual report [47]; AtHub website [48]. Customer concentration is the company's own disclosure.
VNET Data Center Co., Ltd.
WireScreen network-risk flags (1)
Xinjiang supply chain exposure
Exposure labels; they can arise through related entities or customers.
1,007 MWwholesale capacity in service in China, group figure
MicrosoftAzure and other Microsoft cloud services in China are operated by VNET (21Vianet)
~38.1%of the listed parent’s shares, bought by CATL-affiliated vehicles; a voting and consortium agreement with founder Josh Chen took effect at closing
The registry chain ends at the listed parent, so the September 2026 CATL-affiliated stake sits one level above anything the registry shows for the operating company.
WireScreen record, updated Sept. 2026: registered capital $129.67M, legal representative Lin Nan, three branches. VNET [8, 16]; Microsoft [37]. Dashed gold line comes from company disclosure, not the registry.
ZDATA Group Co., Ltd. (中联云港数据科技股份有限公司)
Known in Chinese as Zhonglian Data (中联数据) and in English as ZDATA: one company. Independent data center operator, Beijing, with a mostly private shareholder base and minority state-linked interests
~1.0 GWIT capacity in service, Dec. 2025, per AIIB
4hyperscale parks, each exceeding 500 MW in park scale, per AIIB
3.1%government ownership, WireScreen calculation
One of China’s major independent data center operators, ZData names leading Chinese technology companies as clients and is expanding into Southeast Asia. WireScreen’s record shows a largely privately owned company, led by chairman Zhou Kang (周康), with minority government-linked investment that does not amount to state control.
Shareholders, subsidiaries and financing in detail
Zhou Kang, Dong Yan (董岩) and Li Kai (李凯) directly hold 42.30%, 14.87% and 12.03%, and four limited partnerships together hold an additional 27.95% directly. These are registered shareholdings. WireScreen’s ultimate-ownership calculation also traces indirect interests, and puts the three individuals at 50.90%, 18.90% and 13.00%. The largest state-linked ultimate holders are the State Council and the Suzhou Industrial Park Administrative Committee, at 0.90% each. WireScreen calculates government ownership at 3.1% and government-enterprise ownership at 1.3%; the two should not be added together until it is confirmed that they do not overlap.
The record lists 24 investments and branches, including 19 entries shown at 100%, among them Langfang Yunchu, Yundao and Yunyong Data Technology (廊坊耘储, 廊坊云岛, 廊坊市云涌), three companies in Sanhe, Hebei, and Inner Mongolia Asia Info Intelligent Computing Data Technology (内蒙古亚信智算数据科技). A subsidiary registered in a city is not proof that it owns a campus there. The company says it operates or plans more than 30 data centers and names JD.com, ByteDance, Kuaishou, Alibaba Cloud, Tencent and Huawei as clients; none is tied to a particular site.
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank locates the four parks in Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Hebei and Ningxia. On April 23, 2026, it approved a potential equity investment of up to $35 million in ZData Intelligent valley Limited as part of ZData’s Series C, to fund expansion in China and Southeast Asia. The precise ownership chain connecting that vehicle to ZData’s Chinese operating companies has not been independently verified [98].
WireScreen record, updated Oct. 2026 [100]; AIIB [98]; short name 中联数据 from China Securities Journal [101], and the record lists Zhonglian Data Group as an alias. Ownership categories follow WireScreen’s methodology; ultimate ownership combines all paths and differs from direct holdings. Clients are company-reported. The 1.0 GW is operating IT capacity across the company; the 500 MW describes park scale, and the two are different measures. The project companies behind the four parks are not yet resolved.
China and overseas assets no longer have the same owners
Both large independent operators split their China and overseas businesses. The brands no longer tell you who owns the campuses.
Chindata’s new lead owner is HEC (Shenzhen Dongyangguang Industry, 东阳光), a materials and renewable-energy group; insurers and local government funds joined its consortium [10]. It says it will pair Chindata with its own power sourcing, materials and computing services [10, 11]. The sources reviewed describe intended integration, not completed integration.
Bain Capital (2025) [10]; Chindata (2026) [11, 55]; Bridge Data Centres [12]; DayOne and GDS [9]; GDS’s stake of about 19.9% as of its 2025 annual report, down from 35.6% at end-2024 and 30.1% at end-2025 [106]; DayOne’s planned listing, customer concentration (from its securities filing) and board, as reported by The New York Times [102]; WireScreen record on Chindata, Aug. 2023 [45].
Envision Energy Limited (远景能源有限公司)
Envision Group’s principal wind-energy company
WireScreen network-risk flags (4)
DoD battery procurement banCentral state-owned enterprise involvementGovernment guidance funds involvementXinjiang supply chain exposure
Exposure labels; they can arise through related entities or customers.
Not shownwhich company owns the Galaxy campus; this record does not link to it
32 of 71procurement records list CGN units, 18 list China Huaneng units; counts do not measure sales concentration
100.00%held by a Hong Kong affiliate, where the registry chain ends
Envision Group announced the Galaxy campus (远景乌兰察布星河基地), but this record covers the group’s wind-turbine company and does not show who owns the campus. Chinese coverage names only an AI computing unit as operator [73]. From Oct. 1, 2027, U.S. law bars the Defense Department from buying “Envision Energy” batteries [67, 69]; this record links the company to battery maker AESC through “significant control.” The record also shows a 472.12M contract, dated Dec. 30, 2025, to sell green power in Ulanqab to Inner Mongolia Fengdian Energy Power Generation (内蒙古丰电能源发电). That is a power sale, not the data center.
WireScreen record, updated Oct. 2026 [68]. Procurement figures are record counts, not contract values. Flags can arise through related entities or customers.
Envision Group’s Galaxy campus, Ulanqab: an energy group becomes a data center developer
A wind-energy group is developing the campus and supplying most of its power; technology companies run the computing.
120 MWcommissioned in August 2026 and allocated to tenants
2 GWplanned, which would place it among China’s largest campuses
~80%of power targeted from Envision’s own wind farms, by dedicated line
Envision does not run the computing, and it has not named the two technology companies that took the first phase [62]. Its Chifeng data center, built with Tencent Cloud, is of undisclosed size [72]; the 2 GW reported there is the park’s power system, not data center load [65, 66]. Bloomberg reported that DeepSeek plans about 1 GW in Ulanqab [62].
Bloomberg via Energy Connects [62]; China Daily [63]; DCD [64]; Remio analysis of Envision’s 2026 action report [66]; Tencent Cloud [72]; Yicai [73]. The 80% green-power share is a company target. Capacity and density claims are Envision’s own and not independently verified.
Another WireScreen record: Shanghai Baosight Software, a steel group’s data center arm
Shanghai Baosight Software
WireScreen network-risk flags (4)
Military affiliatedDefense contractorState security contractorPublic security agency customer
Exposure labels; they can arise through related entities or customers.
50.28%held directly by Baoshan Iron & Steel and Magang, acting in concert
24procurement records with the Shanghai Big Data Center
5with the Minhang branch of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau
A steel group's software arm controls data center companies in Shanghai, Hebei and Chongqing. Its customers in WireScreen’s procurement records include the Shanghai Big Data Center, a Shanghai police bureau and the Ministry of Science and Technology's information center.
WireScreen record, updated Oct. 2026 [44]; Baosight 2026 interim report [71] for direct holdings; 34.8% is WireScreen’s calculation of ultimate state economic interest across all ownership paths; it differs from direct holdings and from control. Procurement figures are record counts, not contract values.
China’s global data center footprint
Where Chinese technology companies operate cloud services, Chinese-origin operators develop data centers, and Chinese financing supports overseas infrastructure. A marker does not by itself mean a Chinese-owned building.
By our count, Alibaba, Huawei and Tencent operate about 43 commercial cloud regions outside mainland China and Hong Kong. These are service areas, not necessarily company-owned data centers.
DayOne and Bridge Data Centres are Chinese in origin but no longer Chinese-controlled: GDS keeps a minority stake of about 19.9% in DayOne, and Bain Capital controls Bridge. ZData’s Johor project is reportedly owned through a subsidiary of the Chinese operator, which is not independently verified [9, 12, 99, 106].
Chinese state loans also paid for government data centers that Huawei built in Mozambique and Kenya, part of Beijing’s Digital Silk Road. The commercial cloud regions are not Belt and Road projects in themselves [56, 60, 61].
Overseas cloud regions, campuses and government projects · click a market
Chinese groupChinese-origin, not Chinese-controlledChina-financed government data center, built 2015–2020Planned or proposedOperating or development; stage unverifiedSplit markers carry more than one group
[9, 12, 18–21, 99, 102–105]. U.S. cloud providers are not mapped; their far larger networks are compared in the chart below. Markers sit at the city when one is disclosed and are approximate at country level otherwise. A cloud region, an availability zone and a building are different units.
For scale: cloud regions worldwide, by provider
All regions, including home markets, as each provider reports them. The three largest U.S. providers each run more regions than Huawei or Alibaba. Outside mainland China and Hong Kong, the three Chinese providers together run about 43.
Microsoft [35]; Google [92]; AWS [34]; Huawei Cloud [20]; Alibaba Cloud [19]. Counts are as reported, Sept.–Oct. 2026; AWS has two more announced. Tencent is omitted because its list mixes public, finance-industry and restricted regions. A region is a service area, not a building.
Chinese cloud regions abroad, by provider
Provider region lists, Oct. 2026 [57–59, 89, 90]; Tencent Osaka [91]. Totals sum provider-reported regions outside mainland China and Hong Kong; one region can span several buildings, and one city can host several regions. Huawei counts its two Mexico City regions separately and lists Dublin on its EU site; its earlier Buenos Aires region no longer appears on its current lists. Alibaba’s Riyadh region is a partner region. Alibaba’s São Paulo and Tencent’s Johor Bahru regions opened in Aug. 2026 [57–59, 76, 77]. Government data centers: Kenya [60], Mozambique [61].
Access that is not a campus
Tencent · ~100,000 AI chipsReported five-year lease of Oracle capacity across Southeast Asian sites, giving access to the chips; delivery is not confirmed. Tencent rents; it does not own the campuses. Reuters could not verify the report. [28]
VNET · 478 MW overseas land bankSecured in the second quarter of 2026. The figure describes overseas land resources, not disclosed operating capacity; countries and sites were not disclosed. [8]
What this shows. China’s data center buildout is large, but its structure matters as much as its scale. Hyperscalers generate demand; state carriers supply computing capacity; specialist operators and, increasingly, energy companies build campuses; and government capital enters through several channels. The company on the building is often not the company financing, controlling or ultimately using it.
The companies behind the buildout
COREEssential to understanding the buildoutIMPORTANTSignificant regional or specialist roleADJACENTSupports the buildout but is not a campus operatorFlags show the controlling owner’s country where one exists; otherwise the headquarters.
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