A visitor walks past an outdoor installation at the China International Big Data Industry Expo 2021 in Guiyang, southwest China's Guizhou Province, May 26, 2021. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)
BEIJING, June 16 (Xinhua) -- China will move faster to set up a national integrated big data center system as part of its ongoing efforts to build new infrastructure, reported the Xinhua-run Economic Information Daily on Wednesday.
The country will build hub nodes of the national integrated big data center system in eight key regions including the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the Chengdu-Chongqing city cluster, Guizhou Province, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Gansu Province and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region to promote green and quality development of data centers, according to an implementation plan issued in May by China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and three other central departments.
Relevant enterprises have also accelerated construction of data center projects, especially since the start of the second quarter. For example, China Southern Power Grid Company Limited recently said it would invest about 10 billion yuan in building an energy data center in Guizhou Province. Upon construction completion, the data center will provide energy digital services to the whole country.
The scale of China's data centers kept growing rapidly in recent years. According to data released at the China International Big Data Industry Expo 2021 held last month, the number of data centers in the country increased from 1.24 million in 2015 to five million in 2020.
Industry insiders held it that the market demand for big data infrastructure will continue rising with more mature digital technologies and expanded big data applications and services.
In 2020, China's investment in data center construction reached 300 billion yuan, and its investment in data center industry is likely to hit 1.4 trillion yuan in the following three years, forecast by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.
As China pledges to peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, centralized, large-scale and green development will become the future trend of data centers.
The NDRC will promote the distribution of big data centers to western regions with rich renewable energy resources and favorable climate, geological conditions to address supply imbalance of data centers between the east and the west. Meanwhile, it will accelerate the exploration of energy-saving technologies, energy recycling and renewable energy utilization in big data centers to fuel industrial green growth, said an official with the authority. (Edited by Su Dan with Xinhua Silk Road, sudan@xinhua.org)
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