Most coverage of China's AI build-out cites a number and skips the source. This index does the opposite. It is organized by question, and each entry names where the figure came from and when.
Reference pages
- China Data Center Market Size. Full reference: market size by year and segment, AIDC share, compute capacity, electricity consumption, power price, PUE requirements, cooling capital cost, grid capacity, curtailment, operators, geography, and a China versus US comparison table. Thirteen sections, all sourced.
- AI Code Quality 2026. Defect density across 470 pull requests and 30,000 enterprise systems, the functional-versus-secure gap, AI code review benchmark precision and recall, and the China merge-gate model. Six sections, all sourced.
Quick figures
| Question | Figure | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
| China data center market size, 2026 | 362.1 billion yuan (~$52B), +13.9% | China Industrial Research Institute via AskCI, Jan 2026 |
| AI data center segment, 2026 | 176.3 billion yuan (~$25.3B), +30% | Same |
| AI share of the market, end 2026 | 48.7% | Same |
| National intelligent compute capacity | 2,185 EFLOPS FP16, +177% YoY | MIIT via Economic Daily, Jul 2026 |
| National compute utilization rate | 71.4% | Same |
| AI compute demand vs supply growth | +417% vs +128%, Q1 2026 | CAICT, 2026 |
| Compute available to Chinese entities, 2027 | 8.8M H100-equivalents, +91% | Institute for Progress, Oct 2026 |
| Share from US-designed hardware, 2027 | ~65% | Same |
| Data center electricity, China 2025 | 205.7 TWh, 26.1% of world | Energy Institute, Aug 2026 |
| Data center electricity, US 2025 | 312.6 TWh, 39.7% of world | Same |
| Industrial power, Inner Mongolia | ~0.33 yuan/kWh | Company and state media reporting, 2026 |
| Industrial power, Ohio | ~$0.60/kWh | US utility rate filings, 2026 |
| PUE requirement, new hub-node facilities | Below 1.2 | National hub-node rules, 2026 |
| Cold plate liquid cooling capex, China | 4,000 to 5,000 yuan/kW (~$550 to $690) | Hansen Fluid, 2026 |
| Cold plate liquid cooling capex, North America | Above $1,380/kW | Same |
| Ultrahigh-voltage lines in China | 46 lines, 62,000+ km | State grid disclosures, end 2025 |
| US large transformer lead time | Above 160 weeks | Q1 2026 supply data |
| Top nine cloud provider capex, 2026 | Above $886.7B, +~90% | TrendForce, Aug 2026 |
| Alibaba cloud and AI commitment | Above 380 billion yuan, three years | Alibaba disclosures, 2026 |
| Tencent capex, H1 2026 | 84.7 billion yuan | Tencent disclosures, 2026 |
How to cite this
Each figure is reported as the named source published it on the named date. If a number here disagrees with a newer release from the same source, the newer release wins. Currency conversions use the rate at the source's publication date. Nothing on this index comes from operational access to a facility; it is all public reporting and disclosure.
Corrections are welcome and get logged. If a figure is wrong, the error is more useful to fix than to defend.
The information provided on this page is for general informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute legal, financial, or professional advice. Figures are cited as reported by the named source on the named date and may be revised upstream. All trademarks and references to third-party products, services, or organizations are the property of their respective owners.
Limitations: forecasts are not results; single-firm estimates are labeled as such; no figure is derived from operational access to any facility.