BEIJING (Reuters), -China approved plans for four data centre megaclusters in China’s west and north to serve the nation’s data needs.

According to four statements by the National Development and Reform Commission, clusters will be constructed in northern Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Gansu, Gansu, and SW Guizhou.

According to the state planner, these four sites can make use of their environmental and energy advantages in order to establish green mega data centers.

This is because energy-hungry data centers in China’s eastern have struggled to grow due to restrictions imposed on their electricity consumption.

Many of the cities in China’s north and west regions are rich in renewable energy resources like wind and solar power. These data centers serve China’s economically advanced coast.

The centres’ remote location has meant that the centres are unable to deliver the instantaneous retrieval needed by the coastal clients who don’t tolerate delays.

Given the large distances from east to west data users, it’s not obvious how China will transform the western and northern areas of China, such as Ningxia or Gansu (1,000 km) into active computing centres.

The marine economy development plan, published Dec. 14, encouraged coastal cities like Guangzhou and Shenzhen to move high-energy data centers to submerged locations in order to reduce cooling energy.

China’s big data industry will grow to more than three trillion yuan ($470billion) by 2025, through several clusters of information centres. This is according to a plan published by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (November 2021-2025).

($1 = 6.3714 renminbi)