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   China's Project Stargate rival is pushing new data centers across the country   
   - and swallowing up farmland to do so   
      
   Date:   
   Sat, 27 Sep 2025 22:07:00 +0000   
      
   Description:   
   Chinas $37 billion Wuhu AI cluster seeks to rival US Stargate project,   
   centralizing compute power despite chip and sustainability challenges.   
      
   FULL STORY   
      
   Chinas ambitions in artificial intelligence have gained new visibility    
   through its plan to develop a domestic alternative to the massive Project   
   Stargate being pursued in the United States by OpenAI and Oracle.    
      
   While the American initiative is expected to support up to two million AI   
   chips, Beijing is advancing its own version anchored by a $37 billion project   
   in Wuhu.    
      
   Although far smaller than the $500 billion price tag linked to Stargate, the   
   Chinese project is designed to consolidate existing computing capacity into a   
   more centralized network.   
      
   The Wuhu project and its scale    
      
   The site selected for this project is in Wuhu, eastern China, and it covers   
   former rice fields along a 760-acre island in the Yangtze River basin.    
      
   This land, once devoted to food production, is being converted into a data   
   island for four of the countrys largest technology operators: Huawei, China   
   Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom.    
      
   By situating the new mega-cluster of data centers near major cities such as   
   Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Nanjing, planners hope to deliver faster inference   
   services to dense urban populations.    
      
   Beginning in 2022, China encouraged the construction of server farms in   
   interior provinces with cheap power supplies.    
      
   Yet these sites often sat idle, as local governments reallocated capacity to   
   areas where demand was higher.    
      
   The new plan attempts to fix that by linking both urban and remote data   
   centers through Huaweis UB-Mesh technology .    
      
   This technology can provide redundancy while allowing unused compute power to   
   be sold.    
      
   The Wuhu projects subsidies, which reportedly cover as much as 30% of AI chip   
   procurement costs, further reflect Beijings urgency to make the new clusters   
   operational.    
      
   China currently holds about 15% of global AI compute power, far less than the   
   United States estimated 75%.    
      
   Export restrictions have blocked access to advanced GPUs from Nvidia, leaving   
   domestic suppliers unable to fully match foreign performance.    
      
   That gap has created incentives for smuggling hardware, although officials   
   seem intent on developing self-sufficient AI stacks to reduce dependence on   
   overseas sources.    
      
   The long-term aim is that such infrastructure will allow both companies and   
   individuals to deploy more sophisticated AI tools .    
      
   Whether local chips can support this ambition remains uncertain compared to   
   Western options powering major data centers abroad.    
      
   The conversion of farmland into server space raises questions about   
   sustainability, resource allocation, and energy demand.    
      
   Supporters view the projects as vital for narrowing the technological divide,   
   while skeptics point out the costs of diverting agricultural land and the   
   uncertainty of relying on less powerful local chips.    
      
   Via Toms Hardware   
      
   ======================================================================   
   Link to news story:   
   https://www.techradar.com/pro/chinas-project-stargate-rival-is-pushing-new-dat   
   a-centers-across-the-country-and-swallowing-up-farmland-to-do-that   
      
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