{"slug": "a-rural-city-once-known-for-livestock-now-provides-chinas-ai-computing-fuel", "title": "A rural city, once known for livestock, now provides China’s AI computing fuel", "summary": "Inner Mongolia's Ulanqab, historically known for livestock and potatoes, is now powering China's AI boom with cheap wind power and a cool climate. Chinese renewable energy company Envision Group brought its Galaxy Campus online in Ulanqab, featuring a 120,000-square-metre AI data centre designed to accommodate up to one million AI accelerators with a planned power capacity of over two gigawatts, making it one of the world's largest AI computing facilities.", "body_md": "# In FocusA rural city, once known for livestock, now provides China’s AI computing fuel\n\nFueled by cheap wind power and a cool climate, Inner Mongolia’s Ulanqab is turning energy produced in its pastureland into power for the AI boom\n\n[Ben Jiang](/author/ben-jiang)in Beijing\n\nFor generations, Ulanqab – a city several hundred kilometres northwest of Beijing whose Mongolian name means “red cliff pass” – was known for its windswept pastureland, where cattle grazed and potatoes thrived under long hours of sunlight.\n\nIts economy hinged on the weather, driven by the cool, strong breezes sweeping through the Yinshan mountain range.\n\nToday, giant wind turbines stand next to livestock across those sloping grasslands.\n\n[fuels a scramble for more computing power and electricity](https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3361458/beijing-ramps-computing-power-boost-token-economy-tech-race-us?module=inline&pgtype=article), the same climate that has sustained Ulanqab’s pastoral economy is turning this Inner Mongolian city into one of China’s most coveted industrial assets.\n\nEarlier this month, Chinese renewable energy company Envision Group brought its Galaxy Campus online in Ulanqab. The AI computing facility has, at its heart, a 120,000-square-metre AI data centre, roughly the area of 20 standard football pitches, according to a company statement.\n\nDesigned to accommodate up to one million AI accelerators, the campus has a planned power capacity of over two gigawatts, a scale that would make it one of the world’s largest AI computing facilities.\n\nFor comparison, Colossus 2, the massive US-based AI data centre run by Elon Musk’s SpaceXAI, has a projected 1.5-gigawatt IT power capacity, according to a ranking by consultancy Epoch AI.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-rural-city-once-known-for-livestock-now-provides-chinas-ai-computing-fuel", "canonical_source": "https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3364920/rural-city-once-known-livestock-now-provides-chinas-ai-computing-fuel?utm_source=rss_feed", "published_at": "2026-08-24 02:00:17+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-24 02:13:58.716584+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-infrastructure", "artificial-intelligence"], "entities": ["Envision Group", "Ulanqab", "Galaxy Campus", "SpaceXAI", "Epoch AI"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-rural-city-once-known-for-livestock-now-provides-chinas-ai-computing-fuel", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-rural-city-once-known-for-livestock-now-provides-chinas-ai-computing-fuel.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-rural-city-once-known-for-livestock-now-provides-chinas-ai-computing-fuel.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-rural-city-once-known-for-livestock-now-provides-chinas-ai-computing-fuel.jsonld"}}