“We’re living through two historic revolutions,” says CEO of Chindata Group Mr Wu Huapeng. “One in renewable energy and the other in AI. The digital infrastructure industry sits precisely at the intersection of these forces, converting electrical power into the digital processing capacity that drives AI and modern life.”
Few countries can match China for the sheer scale of technological innovation needed to drive this kind of transformation. From the explosive growth of the nation’s mobile internet industry in the late 2000s – a period that saw surging demand for hyperscale data centres and high-quality digital infrastructure – to the recent rush of Gen AI adoption, China and its industries have always been at the forefront.
But this pace of change, particularly more recently with the rapid scaling of AI, brings its own issues, says Mr Wu: “It poses extreme challenges in terms of computing density, thermal management and power supply. This is driving data centres to evolve from general-purpose internet data centres (IDCs) into AI-optimised or AI-ready data centres (AIDCs).
“As a result, the core of competition has shifted from rack scale and network performance to total computing power output, ultra-high power density and levels of green and low-carbon efficiency.”
China views sustainable computing not as a constraint on its AI ambitions, but as an enabler of them. By securing low-cost and green energy for its AI infrastructure it aims to create a long-term competitive advantage in the global AI race.
Recent national policy reflects this, including the Eastern Data, Western Computing initiative – a project structured to address the massive environmental and resource challenges posed by the nation’s rapidly growing digital economy, particularly the energy consumption of data centres. The initiative moves eastern data processing to western China data centers, leveraging clean energy and cooler climates to boost national computing power sustainably and address regional imbalances.
“It’s more than a geographic realignment of data centers — it represents a systemic rebalancing of the nation's computing resources and energy infrastructure,” says Mr Wu: “Historically, data centers were developed reactively, based on concentrated demand in eastern regions. This new network enables low-latency AI inference for eastern markets while leveraging abundant renewable energy in the west for large-scale model training.
“At Chindata Group, we are taking a proactive approach, directing computing demand toward energy-rich western regions,” he says. “This requires advanced capabilities to plan, construct and operate hyperscale campuses in western hubs while ensuring performance and user experience equivalent to eastern facilities.”
Chindata Group pioneering infrastructure
As one of China’s leading carrier-neutral hyperscale data centre providers, and one of the pioneers in building next-generation infrastructure for the AI era, Chindata Group plays a key role in driving the initiative and supporting China’s wider AI and sustainable computing revolution.
The company was founded in 2015, launching its first next-generation hyperscale data centre campus – the Guanting Lake New Media Big Data Industrial Park near Beijing – in 2017.
“Over a decade-long journey, Chindata Group has built a reputation as one of the region’s most forward-thinking data centre developers, combining engineering excellence, sustainability leadership and an AI-ready model capable of delivering the computing foundation that powers the digital and intelligent future,” says Mr Wu, who joined Chindata Group in 2019, assuming the role of Group CEO in early 2022.
Under his leadership the company has grown by focusing on its core business of hyperscale data centres while pursuing diversification across clients, geographies and business models. “We have advanced in hyperscale AI-ready data centres, expanded our overseas operations and accelerated the research and application of renewable energy technologies. Together, these efforts have reinforced Chindata Group’s ecosystem of partnerships and driven a new phase of sustainable growth,” Mr Wu states.
This growth has been substantial. In line with China’s evolving technology landscape, Chindata Group has been among the first to build and operate hyperscale data centre clusters across key Eastern Data, Western Computing hub regions such as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and other strategic computing power zones.
“These deliver end-to-end, high performance, highly reliable and low-carbon solutions that help deploy and scale AI workloads efficiently while unlocking the full potential of digital infrastructure across regions,” says Mr Wu. “Today, we operate major clusters surrounding Beijing, Yangtze River Delta and the Greater Bay Area that serve as digital engines powering regional economic growth and industrial transformation.”
AI-ready data transformation
Now, driven by factors including the pace of change in the AI computing era, Chinese national policies and the need for sustainable development, Chindata Group is undertaking a comprehensive technological upgrade and strategic transformation programme. Its overarching goal is to become the leading AI infrastructure provider in the Asia-Pacific region with a mission of efficiently converting green electrical power into computing power.
“Our transformation represents a deliberate, forward-looking response to structural changes reshaping the data infrastructure market, rather than a reactionary adjustment to market pressures,” says Mr Wu. “Our aim is to position the company at the core of China’s emerging AI and sustainable computing revolution.”
Embracing this compute shift by moving from general purpose to AI-ready infrastructure is crucial as the rise of AI, particularly large language models, brings an exponential surge in compute power that traditional data centre architectures can no longer meet.
“We’re pivoting toward next-generation, AI-optimised infrastructure – facilities designed for high-density, high-efficiency and ultra-reliable intelligent computing,” says Mr Wu. “However, this escalation in power density has created a fundamental need for advanced cooling solutions. As AI accelerators push rack power from 6–8kW to 50–300kW and beyond, conventional air cooling has reached its physical limits.”
To mitigate this, Chindata Group has pioneered advanced hybrid cooling technologies at its Lingqiu campus in Datong City, integrating cold-plate liquid cooling with magnetic levitation phase-change air systems to achieve a world class power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.13 – a fundamental leap in compute efficiency and sustainability.
The Lingqiu campus was originally developed and built by Chindata Group in 2018. A major hyperscale data centre industrial base, it is a key part of the company’s strategy to provide high-performance and sustainable data centres.
Chindata still owns the campus as an asset following its 2025 acquisition from Bain Capital by a consortium led by Chinese high-tech organisation HEC Group. “This acquisition underscores the market’s recognition of Chindata’s unique value, while unlocking a new phase of integrated growth, technological innovation and national-scale synergy,” says Mr Wu.
He cites several benefits for both parties as a result of the move. For example, HEC Group’s clean power assets and industrial base in key regions of China provide Chindata with direct access to large-scale and low-cost renewable energy. Consolidating both companies’ capabilities across renewable energy, advanced hardware and data infrastructure will create a unified ecosystem that accelerates national policy, while the partnership also enables deep vertical integration along the technology and industrial chains.
Cooling and sustainability
By coming together, Chindata Group and HEC Group are also pioneering new technologies and more innovative ways to balance power and compute with sustainable design. Specifically, HEC brings deep expertise in liquid-cooling materials and precision manufacturing, while Chindata Group contributes years of operational insights from hyperscale data centres.
“Together we are building a fully integrated liquid cooling ecosystem – from materials and components to full systems – that eradicates the limitations of traditional approaches. Our goal is to deliver reliable, high-efficiency cooling for high density server racks up to 300kW per capability, while pushing PUE and water usage effectiveness (WUE) performance close to theoretical limits,” Mr Wu explains.
“To address the intermittency of renewable energy, we are developing a more intelligent power-compute orchestration system,” he says. “By dynamically matching compute workloads with real-time power generation profiles, and deploying large-scale energy storage at the campus level, we can smooth out renewable fluctuations and maximise green power utilisation.
The ambition, Mr Wu explains, goes “far beyond operating a few efficient facilities”. Instead, Chindata Group’s goal is to build a sustainable computing backbone that will power the future of AI. “We are scaling liquid-cooling adoption and optimising energy efficiency from the chip level all the way to the campus level. In doing so, we are not just users of advanced technology, we are helping define the standards and best practices for green computing infrastructure,” he says.
While sustainability is a necessity for the kind of infrastructure needed to support modern AI applications, it has also been at the heart of Chindata Group since its early days. As early as 2020, the company set an ambitious goal to power all next-generation hyperscale data centres in China with 100% renewable energy by 2030, becoming one of the first in Asia to join the global RE100 initiative.
“It’s far more than a matter of corporate social responsibility,” says Mr Wu. “Sustainability has fundamentally reshaped our business model and become a core pillar of our long-term competitive advantage. We believe that true sustainability comes not from incremental optimisation, but from system-level innovation that connects power, infrastructure and computation into one integrated ecosystem.”
The company’s work as part of its transformation is setting a new benchmark for the development of sustainable, AI-ready infrastructure and acting as a key advantage. Chindata Group integrates sustainability into every stage of a data centre’s lifecycle, from site selection to long-term environmental performance, and embeds environmental innovation across every layer of its operations.
As well as advanced cooling technologies, Chindata is also developing smart operations, green power connections and AI-driven energy management systems with the ultimate goal of achieving zero-carbon computing.
“Our objective is to systematically drive down power usage effectiveness (PUE) and reduce the carbon intensity per unit of compute, ensuring that massive AI growth does not come at the expense of environmental sustainability,” Mr Wu says.
Sustainable collaboration
As with any significant transformation programme, Chindata places a premium on effective technology partnerships and collaboration. “We have established a multi-layered, mutually beneficial network of partnerships that form a core pillar of our long-term growth strategy,” says Mr Wu, citing examples such as early-stage partnerships with leading internet platforms that drive innovation and development, and broader collaboration with local governments and energy enterprises.
“Deep collaboration sits at the heart of our mission to efficiently transform electrical power into computing power,” he says, explaining that partner selection is based on four key areas: technological leadership and synergy potential, ESG performance and sustainability, supply chain stability and compliance, and long-term strategic alliance.
“This is fundamental,” says Mr Wu. “In an era of rapid technological evolution driven by AI, no single company can master every critical technology on its own. By forming strategic alliances, we can integrate the best resources across the industry, combining cutting-edge cooling technologies, renewable energy solutions and our own hyperscale operational expertise to deliver computing services that are both high-performance and sustainable.”
Specifically on technology, he references partnerships with the likes of Vertiv, Shenling Environment, MORONG Electric, Yimikang Tech and Climaveneta as particularly fruitful for integrating advanced power distribution, thermal management, and liquid cooling technologies that improve performance and energy efficiency.
“Our long-standing alliance with Climaveneta, a leader in thermal management and energy efficiency, has become a model of industry-wide collaborative innovation,” he says. “It supplied hundreds of indirect evaporative cooling units to our Huailai Data Centre Campus in Hebei, helping us adapt to the region’s unique climate while dramatically improving overall energy efficiency.
“This early success laid the foundation for deeper technical collaboration,” adds Mr Wu. “At our Lingqiu Campus in Shanxi, the two teams jointly developed the cooling system, a hybrid solution that integrates liquid cold-plate cooling with magnetic levitation phase-change air cooling system. This set a new benchmark for hyperscale AI-ready data centers in China, reduced operational costs and demonstrated sustainability commitments can be translated directly into competitive advantage.”
Building for the future
Looking ahead, Mr Wu envisages a future where hyperscale data centres excel in three core areas: energy self sufficiency to enable off-grid powered data centres; highly flexible and modular deployment capabilities, where all components are assemblable and reusables; and providing smarter infrastructure that embeds AI across the entire operational lifecycle.
Chindata Group’s transformation commits it to leading in all three areas, while supporting China’s AI-powered evolution and the further establishment of the Eastern Data, Western Computing initiative.
“In 2026, our focus will remain on strengthening our core business in China, deepening our presence in existing regions and enhancing overall competitiveness,” says Mr Wu. “We plan to expand our footprint in areas rich in renewable energy, particularly at key hubs of the national initiative, where we will design, build and operate next-generation hyperscale (gigawatt-level) data center campuses. We will prioritise the efficient integration of green power and computing capacity, ensuring sustainability remains central to our growth.
“Chindata Group is no longer merely a provider of computing services. It is becoming a strategic partner empowering clients to achieve breakthroughs in AI and sustainability; a national enabler supporting China’s next-generation computing backbone; and a global catalyst driving the green transformation of digital infrastructure,” he says.
“In this historic convergence of artificial intelligence and sustainable computing, Chindata Group stands firmly at the center, laying the technological foundation for China’s digital future.”
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Wu Huapeng
CEO of Chindata Group