The fourth annual Green Computing Power (Artificial Intelligence) Conference convened on the Cilechuan Grassland in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, on August 22, 2026, drawing attention to the city's role in China's computing power landscape. The event, themed 'Building Synergy between Computing and Electricity, Exploring New Horizons in Token Economy, and Creating the Future of Artificial Intelligence Together,' unveiled the Green Computing Power Development Research Report (2026) and showcased pilot projects such as 'millisecond-level urban computing.' Tech companies like ByteDance and Cambricon signed agreements worth tens of billions of yuan to develop green intelligent computing centers and token factories.
The conference's location is no coincidence. Hohhot has become a focal point for the national computing power industry due to its abundant renewable energy and favorable climate. Wind turbines on the grassland generate 12 kilowatt-hours per rotation, and this clean energy is transmitted via a dedicated 41-kilometer line to data centers, which run primarily on wind and solar power. The city's average annual temperature of 7°C allows for natural cooling for over 200 days a year, reducing cooling costs by over 20%. With electricity prices around 0.36 yuan per kilowatt-hour, a large-scale GPU cluster can save approximately 50 million yuan annually.
Hohhot's total computing capacity has reached 150,000 P, with green electricity usage exceeding 80%. However, the intermittency of wind and solar power poses a challenge for continuous computing operations. To address this, the city has implemented an innovative 'computing-electricity synergy' mechanism. China Huadian Corporation has built a 360,000-kilowatt integrated wind-solar-storage power station, featuring 300,000 kilowatts of wind, 60,000 kilowatts of photovoltaic, and four-hour energy storage. A collaborative control platform optimizes power allocation in milliseconds: when green energy is abundant, storage charges and flexible tasks run; when it is scarce, storage discharges, the grid supplements, and flexible tasks are deferred. This bidirectional interaction between power generation and consumption ensures reliability.
On the consumption side, efforts to minimize waste are underway. The Hohhot data center operated by China Mobile recovers waste heat from nearby power plants for cooling. The B02 machine hall improved its Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) from 1.315 to 1.209, saving 560,000 kilowatt-hours annually. When fully operational, two machine halls are projected to save 10 million kilowatt-hours of electricity and 150,000 tons of water each year.
Hohhot now hosts 62 computing center projects, including data centers from China's three major telecom operators, 16 financial institutions, and computing nodes from Huawei, ByteDance, and Kuaishou. Upstream, 45 manufacturing enterprises produce servers, cabinets, and sensors locally. According to a recently published three-year action plan, by 2028 Hohhot aims to establish 10 token factories capable of producing 20 trillion tokens daily, enabling customers to procure not just infrastructure but tailored intelligent services.
The conference highlighted Hohhot's strategic importance in China's 'East Data West Computing' project, which redirects high-demand computing from eastern regions to resource-rich western areas. As the prairie winds continue to blow, Hohhot is converting every kilowatt-hour of green electricity into stable computing power, positioning itself as a key player in the AI and green computing revolution.
