Supporting the construction of a new national capacity system with computing power
2026-07-16
The new round of technological revolution and the digital transformation of national governance are accelerating, and the demand for computing power for artificial intelligence training, reasoning, application, and governance is showing explosive growth. According to statistics from the National Data Administration, the daily average token consumption in China was about 100 billion at the beginning of 2024, and as of March 2026, this number has exceeded 140 trillion, an increase of over 1000 times. Next, intelligent agent AI, world models, embodied intelligence, and a series of future industries will enter an accelerated development stage, and the operating paradigm of artificial intelligence will shift from "dialogue mode" to "all-weather execution mode".
The term 'new infrastructure' presents a unique meaning. Correspondingly, the demand structure for computing power will gradually expand from training computing power and short-term inference computing power to long-term online "action computing power" that supports the continuous operation of complex tasks. This not only indicates that the demand for computing power will soon enter the Yottascale Era, but also puts forward new and higher requirements for computing power supply models, computing power network forms, and computing power governance structures. In view of this, the strategic position of computing power as a "new infrastructure" in the era of digital intelligence is becoming increasingly prominent. Computing power not only drives innovation and development of artificial intelligence technology, but also provides key support for national governance, social operation, urban management, public services, industrial development, and even international competition in key fields.
The Proposal of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Formulating the 15th Five Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development proposes to accelerate the construction of a modern infrastructure system, and emphasizes the "moderately advanced construction of new infrastructure", focusing on promoting the construction and intensive and efficient utilization of information and communication networks, national integrated computing power networks, and major scientific and technological infrastructure. The so-called "new" of "new infrastructure" is not only reflected in its technological form, but also presents unique implications in terms of political attributes, ecological governance, and national capacity compared to traditional infrastructure, such as computing power. In the era of digital intelligence, the computing power network is directly related to the governance efficiency, information security, technological competition, and AI sovereignty of the country, becoming a new strategic resource in the era of digital intelligence. The construction has exceeded the supply capacity of individual enterprises, and the country needs to carry out forward-looking layout through "moderately advanced construction" and reserve strategic "redundancy". From a political science perspective, the construction of computing power is not only the top-level design for the country to promote high-quality development of infrastructure, but also an important measure to grasp the initiative of "artificial intelligence development and governance" and promote the upgrading and reconstruction of national capabilities based on the advantages of the new national system. Computing power has surpassed the essential nature of new quality productivity and become a component and important representation of national capabilities.
The construction of computing power is carried out in a gradient form. Since the 14th Five Year Plan, China's computing infrastructure has made significant progress. As of the end of June 2025, the total computing power scale of China's computing devices has reached 962 EFlops, of which the intelligent computing power scale has reached 782 EFlops, both ranking second in the world. It should be recognized that the modern computing power system is not a single computing resource, but a network system composed of integrated and collaborative computing power, carrying power, and storage power. Its operation relies on the high integration and overall optimization between computing, network, and storage. In this process, the country promotes the spatial allocation and structural optimization of computing power resources through top-level design, advanced planning, cross domain collaboration, standard guidance, and carbon efficiency improvement, gradually building a national computing power governance ecosystem and forming a capacity support system that continuously promotes the high-quality development of computing power.
Currently, the development of computing power in China can be summarized into three key stages. The first stage is from concept proposal to overall layout. Firstly, at the policy level, computing power is stripped away from traditional IT facilities and given a strategic new positioning. In May 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission and four other departments jointly issued the "Implementation Plan for the Computing Hub of the National Integrated Big Data Center Collaborative Innovation System", proposing the "East West Computing" project, marking the country's top-level design to layout the national computing power. The second stage is the implementation and deep integration of the project. In 2022, the construction of national computing power hub nodes will be launched, and 10 national data center clusters will be planned. The national integrated computing power network will enter the formal implementation stage. In 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and six other departments jointly issued the "Action Plan for High Quality Development of Computing Infrastructure", proposing specific construction goals in computing power, transportation power, storage power, and application empowerment by 2025, and promoting the deep integration of the "Computing Storage Network". The third stage is advanced construction and collaborative optimization. Since 2024, the policy focus has shifted towards advanced layout, ubiquitous computing power services, and collaborative computing and electronics. The 2024 Government Work Report clearly proposes to "moderately advance the construction of digital infrastructure and accelerate the formation of a national integrated computing power system". The 2026 Government Work Report proposes the implementation of a large-scale "computing and electricity collaboration" new infrastructure project, promoting planning collaboration, operation collaboration, and electricity carbon collaboration. This marks a new stage of high-quality development of China's computing infrastructure with the goal of "efficiency, low carbon, inclusiveness, and collaboration". Currently, the proposal of a new infrastructure development strategy of "moderately advanced construction" reflects the adaptive governance of the new national system during the period of accelerated technological revolution. Its core is not simply expanding the scale of computing power, but through structural reforms on the supply side of computing power, in order to break through the computing power bottlenecks that may be faced in future national governance, industrial development, technological competition, and key historical nodes. This strategy reflects the expansion of traditional national capabilities in the new technological revolution, that is, the country not only supports the development of artificial intelligence by laying out infrastructure in advance, but also shapes the dominant position of technological development, enhances the modernization level of national governance, and strengthens the discourse power of global governance by building a computing power development ecosystem.
The construction of 'computing power sovereignty' is a new field for national capacity. From the perspective of the global political and economic landscape, as artificial intelligence becomes the core area of global technological competition, computing infrastructure is gradually becoming a new field for competing national capabilities. The world's major technological powers also attach great importance to the construction of computing power capabilities and accelerate the construction of "computing power sovereignty". The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) will release a policy report in 2023 titled "Blueprint for Building Artificial Intelligence National Computing Capacity", providing member countries with the first strategic framework for building computing power. In response to this, the Canadian government will issue the Sovereign Artificial Intelligence Computing Power Strategy in 2025, promoting the construction of autonomous and controllable public supercomputing infrastructure to enhance its competitive position in the global AI innovation system. At the same time, developing countries are not to be outdone. The Indian government takes the "India AI Mission" as a blueprint, seeking AI sovereignty, opportunities, and resilience through computing infrastructure. Middle Eastern countries such as the United Arab Emirates are collaborating with multiple international technology companies to build large-scale AI computing centers, striving to find their own node position in the new wave of technological revolution. It can be seen that under the new wave of technological revolution, computing power has surpassed the attributes of artificial intelligence elements, and its strategic position as a new type of infrastructure is increasingly becoming a consensus. Even free market economies have begun to realize the crucial role of the state in planning and guiding the development of computing power, and actively deploy new computing infrastructure at the national level.
Currently, the development of artificial intelligence is essentially no longer a competition for the "strongest single point", but a competition for the "optimal system". Building a collaborative, dynamically balanced, and dynamic national computing governance ecosystem has become a decisive factor for countries to maintain the continuous evolution and accelerated iteration of intelligent technology. Looking at the world, not all countries have the ability to provide stable, efficient, and low-cost computing resources for their own businesses and residents. The computing divide will increasingly become a key obstacle to coordinated development at different national and regional levels worldwide. As one of the few countries in the world that has built a complete computing governance system, China is not only committed to building an integrated collaborative network of computing power, carrying power and storage power to ensure that its public sector, scientific research institutions and innovative enterprises can obtain stable and sustainable cutting-edge computing power, but also embed computing development into the national governance system to support the construction of a manufacturing power, a network power and a digital China in the process of Chinese path to modernization. In the future, China will strengthen its advantage in computing power and transform it into governance efficiency, promoting the expansion of computing power and establishing a positive correlation between government governance efficiency, social welfare improvement, and green low-carbon. At the same time, as a computing power giant, China can also help countries in the global South enhance their computing capabilities and promote artificial intelligence as a global public good through assistance in building computing infrastructure, co building data centers, and expanding computing services overseas.
In summary, the Chinese path to modernization infrastructure system proposed in the "15th Five Year Plan" indicates that China's computing power construction has entered a new stage of high-quality development. Compared with traditional infrastructure, the construction of new infrastructure such as computing power is not only related to economic growth, but also to national capacity, institutional competitiveness, and international leadership, and has stronger network, public, and strategic characteristics. Accelerating the construction of the computing power ecosystem and moving from a computing power powerhouse to a computing power powerhouse not only helps to firmly grasp the initiative in the development and governance of artificial intelligence, but also accelerates the digital transformation of domestic governance and the construction of an international digital community with a shared future. (Outlook New Era)
Author: Wang Zhongyuan (Associate Professor at the Institute of Advanced Social Sciences, Fudan University)
Edit：Luoyu Responsible editor：Zhoushu
Source：cssn.cn
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