Epoch AI estimates put China's flagship Ascend-powered campus far behind xAI's Memphis buildout, and the gap is not closing anytime soon
Huawei’s Horinger data center in Inner Mongolia is one of China’s showcase AI facilities. According to Epoch AI, it holds about 7% of the computing power inside xAI’s Colossus 2 campus in Memphis, Tennessee.
The numbers behind the gap #
Epoch AI estimates that Horinger is operational with roughly 81,000 H100-equivalent units of AI compute. It draws 170 MW of IT power.
Some quick jargon cleanup: an “H100-equivalent,” or H100e, is a yardstick. It converts any mix of chips into the computing muscle of Nvidia’s H100 accelerator, so facilities with very different hardware can be compared on one scale.
Colossus 2, by Epoch AI’s estimate, sits at about 1,112,000 H100e. It runs on 946 MW of IT power.
Divide one by the other and Horinger lands at approximately 7.3% of Colossus 2. Put differently, xAI’s Memphis campus packs well over ten times the compute of China’s flagship Huawei site.
The money side tells a similar story. Epoch AI pegs Horinger’s capital cost at $6.4B, while its estimate for Colossus 2 comes in at $35.8B.
Two very different hardware bets #
The core of the divide is silicon. Horinger runs mainly on Huawei’s own Ascend 910B and 910C accelerators.
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Colossus 2 leans on a large deployment of Nvidia’s newest Blackwell-series chips, the GB200 and GB300. These are spread across multiple buildings on the Memphis campus.
Horinger is also part of China’s “Eastern Data, Western Computing” initiative. The program’s name describes the plan neatly: data generated in the east, crunched in the west.
Both campuses are still growing #
Neither facility is standing still. Epoch AI projects Horinger will reach around 141,000 H100e in the near future.
Colossus 2’s projected trajectory is steeper. Epoch AI’s estimates have it reaching about 1,824,000 H100e, and the campus targets over 1.2 million units by the end of 2026.
Here’s what that means for the ratio. If both projections pan out, Horinger would sit at roughly 7.7% of Colossus 2’s capacity.
That is barely a nudge from today’s 7.3%. Horinger would be expanding meaningfully in absolute terms while making almost no headway in relative terms.
What this means for the AI compute race #
The metrics to monitor going forward are fairly concrete. Watch whether Colossus 2 actually reaches its target of over 1.2 million units by the end of 2026, and whether Horinger hits the roughly 141,000 H100e Epoch AI expects.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Diego Almada Lopez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.