The China Southeast Big Data Industrial Park in Fuzhou, a center for high-tech enterprises. Photo: Lin Shijie

 
Multiple Chinese authorities including the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country's top economic planner, will start the construction of computing centers in multiple provinces and regions across China while planning a total of ten national data center clusters across the nation, an official from the NDRC said on Thursday. 

The move shows the country has completed the overall layout design of the national integrated big data center system and the official start of the country's strategic project of "transporting data from eastern regions of China to western regions for storage and calculation."
 
The project will help elevate the nation's computing power while promoting green development in western regions with more data centers to be established in the region, which will increase the use of green energy. 

Meanwhile, the project will be able to expand effective investment through the construction of data centers across the country to connect investment from both upstream and downstream enterprises, while promoting coordinated regional development through the designed layout of computing facilities from east to west, which will drive the effective transfer of related industries.

As a country's computing power is a core aspect of the digital economy and a significant infrastructure facility for the nation's economic development, accelerating the construction of computing power will effectively stimulate the innovative vitality and creativity of related industries and industrial digitalization, said the official. 

Most of China's data centers are currently located in eastern regions, and the large-scale development of data centers in the region is unsustainable due to shortages of land, energy and other resources. Therefore, transporting data from the east to the west will optimize resource allocation and enhance the efficiency of resource use. 

The western regions have abundant resources, especially in renewable energy, and have the potential to develop data centers and undertake the demand for computing power in the east, according to the official.