Recently, as DeepSeek drives the growth of demand for AI services, Internet giants, three major operators and other enterprises have accelerated the investment and construction of cloud and AI hardware infrastructure. At the same time, multiple regions and departments are vigorously promoting the research and innovation of key cloud computing technologies through policy support and funding investment. Industry analysis believes that AI big models are driving a new round of growth in the cloud computing industry, and the Chinese market remains highly dynamic. It is expected that the Chinese cloud computing market will exceed 2.1 trillion yuan by 2027.
Alibaba Group announced on February 24th that it will invest over 380 billion yuan in building cloud and AI hardware infrastructure in the next three years, exceeding the total amount of the past decade. This is the largest investment ever made by Chinese private enterprises in the field of cloud and AI hardware infrastructure construction. The explosion of AI far exceeds expectations, and the domestic technology industry is thriving with enormous potential. Alibaba will spare no effort to accelerate the construction of cloud and AI hardware infrastructure, and promote the development of the entire industry ecosystem Alibaba Group CEO Wu Yongming said.
The three major telecom operators have also made relevant deployments for cloud infrastructure construction and accelerated their investment layout in computing power centers and other areas. Recently, major projects in Shanghai Lingang New Area were signed, among which the billion dollar China Telecom Lingang Information Park will build a super computing power center in the future, which can support large-scale artificial intelligence model training with parameters reaching trillions. The civil engineering project of China Unicom Beijing Tianjin Hebei Digital Technology Industrial Park (North District) has officially started construction recently. The project is expected to achieve the main body cap by July 2025. After completion and operation, it will continue to promote the construction of computing power data platforms and promote the empowerment of new computing power platforms for industrial upgrading. In addition, China Mobile proposed at the 2025 work conference that infrastructure construction is of paramount importance, and that data center layout should be optimized to accelerate the release of AI+economies of scale.
Industry analysis suggests that the frequent occurrence of "server busyness" in DeepSeek is related to factors such as insufficient computing power and network congestion caused by large-scale user demand. Driven by the DeepSeek series models, the total demand for AI services from users will grow exponentially, accelerating the penetration of the AI industry and triggering rapid development of AI computing power.
The Evaluation Report on the Development of China's Artificial Intelligence Computing Power in 2025 recently released by IDC and Inspur Information, an international data company, predicts that the scale of China's intelligent computing power will reach 1037.3 EFLOPS in 2025, an increase of 43% over 2024; By 2026, the scale of China's intelligent computing power will reach 1460.3 EFLOPS, which is twice that of 2024.
The algorithm efficiency improvement brought by DeepSeek has not suppressed the demand for computing power. On the contrary, with the addition of more users and scenarios, it has promoted the popularization and application of big models, restructured the industrial innovation paradigm, and driven the construction of data centers, edges, and edge computing power IDC China Vice President Zhou Zhengang said.
At the same time, under the stimulation of computing power and application demand of generative AI and big models, computing power industries such as computing power Internet started a new round of growth. The "Blue Book on Cloud Computing (2024)" released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology predicts that China's cloud computing market will exceed 2.1 trillion yuan by 2027.
Affected by new technologies such as generative AI and big models, the cloud computing market is facing new opportunities. Mid to low tier manufacturers are leveraging their technological platform advantages to quickly promote the intelligent transformation of their existing cloud businesses and seize the market. The vendor landscape may be reshuffled through this opportunity, "said Li Wei, Deputy Director of the Cloud Computing and Big Data Research Institute at the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.
Recently, multiple departments are accelerating policy deployment, consolidating the foundation of computing power, and vigorously promoting the research and innovation of key technologies in cloud computing.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently issued a notice to organize the unveiling of the list of strong computing power foundations. Targeting the six key directions of computing, storage, networking, application, green, and security in the field of computing power networks, we will discover a group of enterprises and institutions that have mastered key core technologies and strong innovation capabilities, and break through a batch of iconic technological products and solutions. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will coordinate the use of various resources to support the shortlisted and winning units, and promote the demonstration and application of excellent achievements. The State owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council recently held a meeting to deepen the deployment of the "AI+" special action for central enterprises, requiring a solid foundation of computing power and providing strong support for technological breakthroughs and application implementation.
In addition, many places have strengthened the construction of computing infrastructure and industry applications through policy support and financial investment. For example, Hunan recently released several policy measures to promote the high-quality development of the green intelligent computing industry, including a clear support for major intelligent computing infrastructure construction projects with a scale of over 1000 PFlops, adopting a "case by case" approach; For new (renovated) intelligent computing infrastructure projects with a total capacity of over 50 PFlops and a data center energy utilization efficiency of no more than 1.3, a subsidy of 10% of the equipment and software construction costs will be provided, with a maximum of 20 million yuan.
For the next step of development, Li Wei suggests strengthening technological breakthroughs to form a joint force and balancing the supply and demand of basic resources on multiple levels. Increase the construction of cloud infrastructure nodes such as intelligent computing centers and supercomputing centers, while reducing the loss of existing solutions and optimizing the efficiency of existing computing power and cloud storage resource supply. Improve the level of digital intelligence cloudification in various scenarios, support the demand for intelligent computing power in artificial intelligence application scenarios, and empower thousands of industries.