Executive Summary
By the first half of 2026, Inner Mongolia has formed a computing power industry cluster driven by the dual cores of Ulanqab and Horinger, with a total computing capacity approaching 300,000 P. The total investment of signed projects exceeds 500 billion RMB. Ulanqab, with a computing capacity of 165,000 P, accounts for 8.7% of the national total. It has undertaken 65,000 P of computing power overflowed from Beijing and is transitioning from a data center hub to an AI training task hub.
PART 1: Industrial Landscape: A Computing Power Highland Driven by Dual Cores
1.1 National Strategic Positioning
Inner Mongolia is one of the eight major hub nodes in the national "East Data and West Computing" project. Its subordinate Horinger Data Center Cluster (covering the Hohhot Horinger New Area and the Jining Big Data Industrial Park in Ulanqab) is one of the top ten clusters nationwide. In 2026, "computing-power and electricity coordination" was written into the Government Work Report for the first time. The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan explicitly proposed building a multi-level computing power facility system and a national integrated computing power network. The State Council's "Opinions on Deepening the Implementation of the 'AI+' Action" requires optimizing the layout of national intelligent computing resources and giving full play to the role of the "East Data and West Computing" national hub.
Under this top-level design, Inner Mongolia is positioned as a "National Important Green Computing Power Guarantee Base" and a "Green Computing Power + AI" application base. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, it will shift from resource export to computing power empowerment, giving full play to the advantages of wind and solar power resources and transforming them into computing power competitive advantages.
1.2 Development Comparison of Core Areas in the Horinger Data Center Cluster
| Dimension | Ulanqab | Horinger |
| Computing Capacity | 165,000 P | 125,000 P |
| Proportion of Intelligent Computing | >90% | >96% |
| Signed Projects | 89 | 66 |
| Total Investment of Signed Projects | 500 billion RMB | 231.9 billion RMB |
| Standard Racks | 500,000 built, 330,000 operational | 532,000 built, 380,000 operational |
| Rack Utilization Rate | 66% | 71.6% |
| Proportion of Green Power | 67% across the region | 86% |
| Core Positioning | Ultra-large-scale Intelligent Computing Training Base | Financial Computing Power + Telecom Operator Hub |
Key Trends: The two core areas show differentiated division of labor — Ulanqab focuses on ultra-large-scale AI training intelligent computing centers, attracting leading enterprises such as Huawei, Alibaba, Kuaishou, ByteDance, GDS Holdings, and Envision to build their own large-scale computing power bases; Horinger, based on data centers of telecom operators and financial institutions, overlays intelligent computing projects such as Volcano Engine and Paratera, ranking first in the country in the green computing power index.
PART 2: Policy Drive: From "East Data and West Computing" to "Computing-Power and Electricity Coordination"
2.1 Policy Evolution Timeline
2022
The "East Data and West Computing" project was officially launched, and Inner Mongolia was approved as one of the eight national computing power hub nodes.
2023.12
In December 2023, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and other departments issued the "Implementation Opinions on Deepening the Implementation of the 'East Data and West Computing' Project and Accelerating the Construction of a National Integrated Computing Power Network." While continuing the overall framework of "East Data and West Computing," this document explicitly proposed the direction of coordinated construction of computing power and green power for the first time, and set specific goals: by the end of 2025, the proportion of green power in newly built data centers at national hub nodes will exceed 80%. Meanwhile, the document first proposed the conceptual prototype of "computing-power and electricity coordination."
2024.08
In August 2024, the NDRC, the National Energy Administration (NEA), and the National Data Administration (NDA) issued the "Action Plan for Accelerating the Construction of a New Power System (2024-2027)," which continued to promote computing-power and electricity coordination as a key task in the action to improve the friendly performance of the new energy system.
2025.05
In May 2025, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued the "Action Plan for Computing Power Interconnection," proposing that by 2026, a relatively complete standard, identification, and rule system for computing power interconnection will be established; by 2028, the standardized interconnection of national public computing power will be basically realized, gradually forming a computing power internet with intelligent perception, real-time discovery, and on-demand acquisition.
2025.08
In August 2025, the State Council issued the "Opinions on Deepening the Implementation of the 'AI+' Action," requiring the optimization of the layout of national intelligent computing resources and the improvement of the national integrated computing power network.
2026
In 2026, "computing-power and electricity coordination" was written into the Government Work Report for the first time. The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan proposed building a multi-level computing power facility system and a national integrated computing power network.
2.2 Local Supporting Policies
Ulanqab has successively introduced policies such as the "Development Plan for the Jining Area of the Inner Mongolia Hub Node of the National Integrated Computing Power Network (2023-2025)" and the "Guiding Opinions on the Implementation of New Cloud Computing Center Projects," building a trinity guarantee mechanism of "land + electricity + network" and providing enterprises with "one-on-one" whole-process services. Inner Mongolia Power Group issued the "Ten Measures for Serving the High-Quality Economic and Social Development of the Autonomous Region," customizing exclusive green power channels for computing power hubs such as Horinger and Ulanqab.
The Horinger New Area has built a whole-process efficient service system of "starting construction upon land acquisition, joint review and handling, and special commissioner agency," and took the lead in launching the construction of green power direct supply demonstration projects in the autonomous region, realizing computing power interconnection with Beijing, Wuhu, Guizhou, Chongqing, and Suzhou.
PART 3: Core Competitiveness: The Inner Mongolia Model of Computing-Power and Electricity Coordination
The core logic of Ulanqab attracting hundreds of billions of capital inflows can be summarized as "computing follows electricity" — how green power drives down the cost of computing power, and how computing power helps absorb green power. This model has evolved from the early shallow logic of "electricity supporting computing power" to a two-way integrated computing-power and electricity coordination system of "green power supplying computing power, computing power absorbing green power, and computing network optimizing the power grid."
3.1 Four Core Advantages
01. Cool Climate
The average annual temperature in Ulanqab is only 4.3°C. For nearly 10 months a year, natural cold sources can be relied upon to complete server room heat dissipation, significantly reducing cooling energy consumption. The PUE is generally controlled below 1.2, with some projects as low as 1.15 or even 1.1.
02. Abundant Green Power
Ulanqab's wind power resources account for one-tenth of the national total and one-third of Inner Mongolia's total. The installed capacity of new energy reaches 20.288 million kW, with the proportion of green power across the region at 67%, ranking among the top prefecture-level cities in the country. The electricity price to households is about 0.35 RMB/kWh, which is about 50% lower than that in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.
03. Location and Network
It is about 240 kilometers in a straight line from Beijing. Two 144-core point-to-point dual-route large-capacity optical cables directly to Beijing have been built. The one-way measured latency is up to 2.1 milliseconds, and the dual-route failover is controlled within 20 milliseconds.
04. Geological Stability
With a stable geological structure, far from earthquake belts, and few natural disasters, it provides natural guarantees for secure data storage and disaster recovery, attracting projects such as Zhonghong Zijing Blue-ray Storage and the Head Office Data Center of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank to settle here.
3.2 Two Major Paths of Computing-Power and Electricity Coordination
Currently, the mainstream models of computing-power and electricity coordination in Ulanqab are divided into two types:
Path 1: Green Power Trading Model. Data center operators purchase local green power through market-based means, including signing long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) with new energy enterprises and building dedicated lines, or purchasing green power from the West Inner Mongolia electricity spot market. Early entrants such as Huawei, Alibaba, and Apple mostly adopt this model.
Path 2: Source-Grid-Load-Storage Integration Model. Represented by the China Data Zero-Carbon Computing Power Base, it is equipped with 300,000 kW of wind and solar power + 45,000 kW of energy storage. Clean electricity is directly connected to the computing power center 16 kilometers away through dedicated lines, realizing synchronous planning, construction, commissioning, and unified operation of source, grid, load, and storage. It provides 848 million kWh of self-generated and self-used green power annually, with a renewable energy substitution rate of 38.74% and an annual carbon reduction of 567,000 tons. Four similar projects, including 21Vianet and the second phase of China Data, have been approved simultaneously, with a total green power scale reaching 1.6 million kW.
Industry Frontier: The China Data Base has landed the country's first integrated computing power and energy regulation and control platform, realizing the autonomous matching of computing power load and new energy power generation fluctuations. Industry analysis points out that an 80% proportion of green power is just the entry threshold for the industry. In the future, the precise matching of hourly green power supply and demand will become the new focus of competition for computing power parks.
PART 4: Analysis of Key Projects: Panoramic View of 29 Projects Above Designated Size
According to the detailed summary table of data centers/intelligent computing center projects above designated size in Inner Mongolia (data as of August 2026), there are a total of 29 key large and medium-sized projects in the autonomous region, including 18 in Ulanqab, 6 in Horinger, Hohhot, 2 in Ordos, 2 in Baotou, and 1 in Xilin Gol. The core projects are sorted out below according to investment scale and strategic significance.
4.1 Hundred-Billion-Level Projects in Ulanqab
*Not fully displayed
4.2 Projects Worth Attention
*The above projects have not been officially confirmed by enterprises or the government. If the above rumors are true, large model enterprises such as DeepSeek and Moonshot AI will migrate their training tasks from Beijing to Inner Mongolia, which means that Inner Mongolia is crossing from the computing power infrastructure stage to the stage of truly bearing the training load of leading models. This will have a practical driving effect on the upstream and downstream industries such as GPU scheduling, network interconnection, liquid cooling equipment, and operation and maintenance services.
4.3 Key Projects in the Horinger Cluster
*Not fully displayed
4.4 Projects in Other Leagues and Cities
Places such as Ordos (Yisheng Intelligent Computing, Xuanji Intelligent Computing), Baotou (Guyang Zero-Carbon Intelligent Valley, Darhan Muminggan Joint Banner Super Intelligent Computing), and Xilin Gol (Haokuan Cloud Start) also have small and medium-sized intelligent computing project layouts, mainly relying on local wind and solar resources to realize nearby absorption of green power. However, there is still a significant gap in scale and energy level compared to Ulanqab and Horinger.
PART 5: Industrial Ecology: From Selling Computing Power to Selling Intelligence
Inner Mongolia's computing power industry has bid farewell to the primary stage of single project landing and entered a new period of cluster development with industrial agglomeration and complete chains.
5.1 Vision of the "Token Capital"
Ulanqab has launched a 3-year construction plan for the "Token Capital," striving to open up the industrial closed loop of "wind and solar power generation — green computing power — Token value output." The core of this strategy is to turn Inner Mongolia's wind and solar power into electricity, computing power, and Tokens, turning abundant and cheap clean energy into digital "hard currency" with several or even dozens of times the value.
5.2 Talent and Integration of Industry and Education
Ulanqab has deepened the integration of industry and education, building an integrated education system of "production, study, research, and application." Jining Normal University took the lead in establishing the Inner Mongolia Beijiang Computing Power Research Institute. Ulanqab Vocational College, in conjunction with Huawei and Chinasoft International Education, established the Digital Intelligence Industry College, which has trained thousands of professional talents. The direct employment in data centers across the city exceeds 15,000, driving more than 1,000 upstream and downstream jobs. The Horinger New Area, relying on the "26 Articles for Strengthening the City by Science and Technology" and the "25 Articles for Strengthening the City by Talent," has deepened the cooperation in the "Two-Hour Innovation Circle" between Beijing and Inner Mongolia.
PART 6: Conclusion and Outlook
The computing power industry in Inner Mongolia/Ulanqab is at a critical turning point from scale expansion to quality leap. However, behind the prosperity, three core issues need to be calmly examined:
First, can computing power be truly absorbed? The 66% rack utilization rate, as well as the current situation where signed ≠ landed investment, requires continuous verification from the demand side. The shift of large model enterprises from "renting computing power" to "self-building" is a positive signal, but whether it can form a stable inflow of training tasks remains to be seen.
Second, can the green power advantage be sustained? Factors such as the intermittency of wind and solar power, energy storage costs, the phasing out of electricity price incentives, and tightening resources may erode the cost moat.
Third, can the industrial chain develop in depth? The leap from "selling computing power" to "selling intelligence" requires breakthroughs in high value-added links such as computing power scheduling, data trading, large model applications, and industry solutions. Currently, the downstream ecosystem is still in its infancy, forming a sharp contrast with the 500 billion RMB signed investment.
Outlook: In 2026, the goal of Ulanqab's computing power industry is to break through a total scale of 200,000 P and achieve a revenue of over 8 billion RMB, striving to break through 10 billion RMB by the end of the 15th Five-Year Plan. If the signed projects are implemented as scheduled, Ulanqab is expected to truly leap from the "Grassland Cloud Valley" to a global-level "Token Pasture." However, the true test of the industry lies not in how many server rooms have been built, but in how much computing power is truly used and how many Tokens are truly created.
Disclaimer: The article is comprehensively compiled from publicly available information on the Internet. The platform does not guarantee its accuracy and is for readers' reference only. If there is any infringement, please contact us, and it will be deleted within 24 hours.