{"id":69253,"date":"2026-09-17T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/?p=69253"},"modified":"2026-09-17T11:47:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T03:47:12","slug":"4-trends-to-better-understand-chinas-data-centers-and-their-electricity-demand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/blog\/69253\/4-trends-to-better-understand-chinas-data-centers-and-their-electricity-demand\/","title":{"rendered":"4 trends to better understand China\u2019s data centers and their electricity demand"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
\u00a9 Weimin Chu<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

By Tang Damin<\/p>\n\n

Data centers are expanding rapidly in China, with rapidly expanding demand for electricity. Over the past few years, Chinese tech companies providing cloud computing and operating data centers have started to make progress on greening their electricity consumption, moving towards the ultimate goal of 100% renewable energy consumption. But a boom in new data centers associated with AI now complicates that progress.<\/p>\n\n

A new report from Greenpeace East Asia\u2019s Beijing office looked at 25 top tech companies that provide cloud computing services or operate data centers and found that both the total amount of renewable energy used by many of these companies and the proportion of their electricity use that comes from renewable energy are both still growing, even amid the AI data center boom.<\/p>\n\n

But the final emissions reduction outcome of this shift is harder to ascertain, as our research relies on publicly available disclosures and data from companies, and these tech companies usually only disclose overall energy use and emissions data, not specifying breakdowns for their data centers. So, pinpointing actual energy consumption would require information that isn\u2019t publicly available.<\/p>\n\n

This is part of Greenpeace East Asia\u2019s decade-long Clean Cloud campaign on cloud computing and data center electricity consumption in China. Read<\/i><\/mark> our findings <\/em>our <\/em>Clean Cloud 2026 report<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/mark><\/p>\n\n

Given the immense pressure on tech companies to source renewable energy and favorable policies promoting \u201csynergy\u201d between computing and renewable energy, some major tech companies in China are avidly investing in large, utility-scale renewable energy projects and signing long-term power purchase agreements in order to secure long-term, stable supplies of renewable energy. But progress is uneven, with some companies either not showing much progress or even disclosing little information to the public.<\/p>\n\n

So, for now, it\u2019s a matter of continuing to watch closely and push tech companies directly to reach 100% renewable energy by 2030! For almost a decade, Greenpeace East Asia\u2019s Beijing office has pushed for data center to achieve operation carbon neutrality by at least 2030. When we started, AI was not the compute-demanding beast it is today. But that doesn\u2019t change the basic fact that China\u2019s data centers need to source 100% renewable energy by 2030.

Here are four key trends we\u2019ll continue to watch: <\/p>\n\n

1. AI data centers complicate the picture, but not the same way in China as elsewhere. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

The growth in data centers\u2019 electricity consumption linked to AI data center expansion means that data center electricity demand in China is projected to grow rapidly. That means that, to meet the targeted emissions reduction outcome, renewable energy consumption also needs to expand even more rapidly. The 100% renewable energy by 2030 target remains the same. <\/p>\n\n

China\u2019s AI data center expansion is unique, both because of the structuring of the expansion and also the pressure on tech companies to make progress on climate targets associated with Beijing\u2019s net zero targets. <\/p>\n\n

For one, new data centers in China are concentrated in hubs, and many of them in areas that have already seen extensive growth of utility-scale renewable energy projects. In China, solar and wind capacity growth has been so extensive that it\u2019s often the case that renewable energy projects are eagerly looking for electricity demand to meet. Data center growth is frequently located around these projects.<\/p>\n\n

2. Government pressure and incentives for data center expansion to link with renewable energy capacity expansion <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

China\u2019s state-level policy has a massive impact on companies, and the central government has explicitly connected the development in new computing capacity around AI to a coordinated development of renewable energy capacity growth and uptake. <\/p>\n\n

This creates a number of incentives around renewable energy for data centers, but we need to watch closely how these initiatives play out in the real world. There are technical issues involved in the coordination of increased data center expansion with renewable energy. <\/p>\n\n

Currently, we can see that local governments increasingly try to woo cloud computing providers and data center companies to set up in their area by offering long-term access to renewable energy. But we will need to keep watching to see the actual results as they play out in these massive tech companies’ total climate impacts. <\/p>\n\n

3. Supply chains: tech companies need to lead the decarbonization of their entire value chain<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

The current level of corporate disclosure from tech companies on how they source electricity to power their operations and how companies in their supply chain power their own operations has improved considerably since we started this campaign.<\/p>\n\n

But disclosure is just the first step. And improved disclosure has shown the need for stronger direct action to decarbonize the supply chain. Tech companies need to set explicit targets to accelerate reduction of supply chain emissions, for example, through supporting rented data centers to source renewables.<\/p>\n\n

4. Beyond 100% renewable energy: looking inside the data center and outside the country<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

The construction of data centers itself is a source of greenhouse gas emissions, and one of the risks of carbon neutrality or 100% renewable energy targets is that they can fail to reach across all actual real world climate and environmental impacts. <\/p>\n\n

Take construction materials for example. The construction of a data center requires a high density of steel and cement, both carbon-intensive building materials. This is also part of the embodied carbon footprint of this industry, and sourcing low-carbon steel, for example, significantly reduces this embodied carbon. <\/p>\n\n

Also, Chinese cloud computing providers and data center operators are increasingly active overseas, with big names such as Alibaba Cloud, GDS and ByteDance investing in new computing capacity in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, etc. There, Chinese tech companies face a different set of energy policies, environmental regulations, and social contexts. Achieving their climate targets not only within China but also beyond will be a different challenge for these companies.<\/p>\n\n

The ultimate repercussions of this global AI data center boom are still unclear, and we have every reason to keep a close eye on the climate impact of tech giants, including those from China. So, watch this space!<\/p>\n\n

ENDS<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tang Damin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":68725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_seo_meta_title":"","p4_seo_meta_description":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1],"tags":[100],"p4-page-type":[26],"class_list":["post-69253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-energy","category-uncategorized","tag-renewable-energy","p4-page-type-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69253"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69280,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69253\/revisions\/69280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69253"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=69253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}