Why Hebei Became China's Computing Power Champion: Four Strategic Advantages

According to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) 2026 Comprehensive Computing Power Panorama Analysis, Hebei province ranks first nationally in both intelligent computing power scale at 556.1 EFLOPS (approximately 25.4% of the national total) and in-use standard racks at 2.504 million. Hebei's comprehensive computing power index has ranked first nationwide for two consecutive years (2024 and 2025).

Proximity to Beijing: Low-Latency Advantage

Beijing's massive computing demand — from 21.8 million residents, dense internet enterprises, financial institutions, and research bodies — cannot be met locally due to land scarcity, power constraints, and policies to relocate non-capital functions. Hebei, bordering Beijing, became the optimal overflow destination. The Jing-Jin-Ji hub is one of eight national computing power hub nodes under the "East Data West Computing" project, launched in February 2022.

Latency is the decisive factor for model inference, financial trading, smart governance, and real-time interaction. Physical distance limits latency, making it a hard threshold. Langfang, for example, has built direct ultra-low-latency fiber links to Beijing core nodes achieving 0.33 ms one-way latency and sub-1 ms data center response, enabling "Beijing-Langfang" same-city real-time interaction. Hebei coordinated a 400G all-optical transport network across the three regions, built multiple direct fiber routes around Beijing, and achieved 2 ms latency from Langfang clusters to Beijing platforms, a 3 ms Jing-Jin-Ji circle, and a 20 ms national circle. Total provincial fiber length reaches 2.953 million km. International data channels in Xiong'an and Zhangjiakou support large-model overseas expansion and cross-border digital business, with provincial inter-provincial exit bandwidth reaching 112,600 Gbps.

Green Energy in Zhangjiakou: Cost and Carbon Advantage

Zhangjiakou, China's only national renewable energy demonstration zone, generates over 70 billion kWh annually from renewables. In 2025, Zhangjiakou computing centers consumed 9.543 billion kWh, ranking first among the eight hub nodes, with over 5 billion kWh from green power; multiple projects achieve 100% green power supply. The region's transitional geography between the North China Plain and Inner Mongolia Plateau provides cool climate and natural cold sources, drastically reducing cooling energy. This "natural cooling + green power" combination pushes data center PUE below 1.25, with advanced projects reaching 1.15, significantly better than the national average. As of June 2026, Hebei's cumulative renewable energy grid-connected capacity reached 156.859 GW, accounting for 73.6% of total installed capacity.

Major Data Center Deployments

China Unicom

China Unicom North China (Langfang) Data Center, a core node in Unicom's "5+4" strategy, positions as an integrated training-inference hub and primary supplier of large-scale resources around Beijing. Operating for over 10 years at Class A standard, it features a self-built 110 kV substation with dual-route power for financial-grade reliability. Currently 6 equipment buildings, 1 O&M building, and 1 substation are in production with 18,600 racks. DC16 electromechanical construction and 3 new intelligent computing buildings are underway, set to multiply intelligent computing power. The Huailai park in Zhangjiakou plans 8 equipment buildings, 2 O&M buildings, 2 substations, 244 MW IT power, nearly 100,000 standard racks, and 18 EFLOPS; 5 equipment buildings, 1 O&M building, and 1 substation are already operational. Unicom aims for a "2+3+N" layout (2 central clusters, 3 provincial core rooms, N city edge nodes) across Huailai and Langfang, with 47,200 racks province-wide.

China Telecom

China Telecom Smart Cloud Base Huailai Park, one of Hebei's largest intelligent computing centers, carries 3.2 billion RMB total investment and 150 MW IT capacity, primarily serving Tianyi Cloud and Jing-Jin-Ji intelligent computing. Phase 1 includes 2 standardized data centers, 1 power center, 1 smart cloud scheduling center, and 3,600 high-power racks; Phase 2 broke ground in April 2025. Telecom builds three AIDC clusters in Huailai, Zhangbei, and Gaoyang under a "two-high, two-flexible" standard (high power density, high computing output, flexible construction, flexible expansion), planning over 800 MW total computing service capacity.

China Mobile

China Mobile Jing-Jin-Ji (Shijiazhuang) Data Center, one of Mobile's three regional hubs and North China regional node, is built to national Class A standard. Its dual-core architecture of 5 specialized computing buildings and 3 power centers supports high-capacity, high-stability, scalable one-stop computing services. Designed for 18,000 racks at full load, Phase 1 (2 data center buildings, 1 power center, 7,200 racks) is fully operational. It hosts over 60 provincial departments, including the medical insurance system for 75 million residents. Mobile focuses on five core hubs — Shijiazhuang, Baoding, Langfang, Zhangjiakou, Xiong'an — with 80,000 planned racks, 33,600 delivered, and 1,907 PFLOPS intelligent computing built.

Private Sector: Runze and Zhongding Cloud

Runze Intelligent Computing, a Langfang-native leader, operates 9 AIDC parks globally. Its Langfang International Information Port has 8 IDC and 4 AIDC buildings in production with nationally leading infrastructure scale. The Runze AI Application Center Phase 1 invests 21.8 billion RMB to support 100,000 PFLOPS. Zhongding Cloud's large-scale intelligent computing project in Langfang's Guangyang District plans 26.2 billion RMB total investment on 910 mu (60.7 hectares). Phase 1 invests 3 billion RMB on 92.9 mu for 4 standard intelligent computing buildings and a 110 kV substation, deploying 100% domestic IT equipment. As Langfang's first large zero-carbon intelligent computing project, Zhongding signed a 100 MW photovoltaic green power direct-connection contract with State Power Investment Corporation Hebei, becoming one of the province's first 31 green power direct-connection projects. Seven of China's top 10 computing service providers have deep layouts in Langfang, which operates 36 large data centers with intelligent computing supply exceeding 200,000 PFLOPS.

Xiong'an New Area: Digital Twin Hub

Xiong'an Urban Computing Center ("Xiong'an Eye"), located east of Yue Rong Park, serves as the "super brain" and core digital infrastructure for Xiong'an's digital twin city, central to its "one center, four systems" smart city architecture. The 39,000 sqm facility pioneers large-span column-free IDC rooms, landscape-concealed layout, and modular containerized rooms. It provides general, intelligent, and supercomputing power across government, relocated central/state-owned enterprises, internet, SMEs, finance, education, research, and healthcare. Phase 1 delivers 90,000 vCPU cores and 42 PB storage; final phase targets 2 million vCPU cores and 900 PB storage.

Conclusion

Through the Jing-Jin-Ji hub layout under "East Data West Computing," Hebei is transitioning from an industrial manufacturing and power-exporting giant to a computing power service powerhouse. Amid society-wide emphasis on digital, industrial, and green transformation, Hebei leverages its locational, green energy, national strategy, and industrial scenario advantages to forge a distinctive digital economy path worthy of reference. Hebei's rise as China's top computing province is not a windfall but the compound result of four overlapping factors. This land once known for steel is becoming the solid computing foundation of Digital China.

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