Photo: Courtesy of Huawei

On March 29, 2022, Three Gorges Group completed the first phase of its Dongyuemiao Data Center Project in Yichang, Central China's Hubei Province. Huawei Digital Power provides the overall data center infrastructure solution for this project. The data center is located on the right bank of the Three Gorges Dam — one of the world's largest hydropower stations. Once all three phases of the project are completed, the data center will house 26,400 racks, spanning over 100,000 square meters — becoming the largest green data center cluster in Central China.

The first phase of the project, costing 845 million yuan ($134.01 million), built 4,400 racks with a footprint of 40,000 square meters, including a data center equipment room building, a communications command building, and a 35 kilovolt substation. The entire power consumption of this first phase, amounting to over 200 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, will be supplied using clean hydropower generated by the Three Gorges Dam. The project also employs a water-cooled source system to significantly reduce energy consumption and boost energy efficiency.

The Dongyuemiao Data Center is built in accordance with the national class-A equipment room standards. It utilizes industry-leading technologies along with proprietary, secure, and controllable products, to become the first large-scale, green, zero-carbon data center in China. Huawei provides the overall L0+L1 solution, including data center system architecture design, main equipment supply, and integrated project delivery and management.

The main equipment in the full-stack solution provided by Huawei Digital Power includes 160 modular equipment rooms, 38 PowerPODs, 320 SmartLi devices, 160 high-temperature fan walls, one iCooling@AI (smart cooling system), and one AI-Robot (for intelligent inspection). The equipment enables Three Gorges Group build a simplified, intelligent, safe, and green data center.

The whole of China is actively working toward its recently announced carbon peak and neutrality goals. A major part of the process is reducing carbon emissions in data centers. Huawei Digital Power has spared no effort in helping Three Gorges Group build its Dongyuemiao Data Center into a green and zero-carbon data center. To achieve this goal, Huawei applies its cutting-edge iCooling@AI solution to control the annual power usage effectiveness (PUE) within 1.25. At the same time, the PowerPOD+SmartLi power backup solution ensures long-term reliable operation of the data center and reduces the power supply and distribution footprint by 40 percent, so it is able to house 500 more racks. In addition, the customer can quickly deploy the various phases, thanks the overall solution+E2E prefabrication-based delivery. This means TTM is 50 percent shorter compared with traditional data center construction practices.

The Dongyuemiao Data Center is a key digital transformation project and part of 14th Five-Year Plan for the Three Gorges Group, which prioritizes green and digital development. The data center project will help the country seamlessly transfer data resources between the East and West China. With its central location in Hubei Province near the Three Gorges Dam, the project has a reliable supply of clean energy along with a high level of security. It is yet another step toward expanding the economy along the Yangtze River, and supporting national digitalization drive across China.