The nation is prioritizing the development of six major networks: water networks, new-type power grids, computing power networks, next-generation communication networks, urban underground pipeline networks, and logistics networks. Some flow through rivers, some are suspended high in the sky, and others are buried deep underground, invisible to the eye. Today's six networks are deeply interconnected, each embedded within the others. When they join hands, what kind of power can be unleashed? Not long ago, the National Development and Reform Commission convened a meeting with two power grid enterprises, three telecom operators, and a group of computing power-related companies to establish a unified coordination mechanism for the power grid, communication network, and computing power network. Why must these three networks develop in coordination? What new changes will this coordination bring about?

Computing Power Takes Root in the Gobi Desert — How Can the Network Keep Up?

As the National Day holiday approached, reporters traveled to Zhongwei in Ningxia, one of the eight major hub nodes of the national "East Data, West Computing" initiative. The Gobi Desert was still bustling with construction activity, as enterprises from across the country rushed to establish computing power projects there. How intense is the construction? The company responsible for building the computing center is revising its "15th Five-Year Plan" that was just finalized at the end of last year. Zhou Chongyang, a computing network planning expert at China Mobile Ningxia Company, told reporters that computing demand has exploded this year, with the entire construction requirements originally planned for the "15th Five-Year Plan" period completed in just one year. The latest proposal plans to build 60 new data centers, tripling the original planned scale. However, the surge in demand has brought new challenges. As more enterprises move in, if network capacity is not expanded in time, data processing will face queuing delays. Liu Xingyu, an engineer at a Zhejiang computing power company, admitted that after large model training is completed, data transmission at remote computing centers requires lengthy waits, which invisibly increases training cycles and operational costs while also wasting computing resources. Moreover, Zhongwei is over a thousand kilometers away from core eastern regions such as the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area and the Yangtze River Delta. Even with the highest-grade direct fiber optic connection currently available, transmission latency still reaches 20 milliseconds. Facing the current influx of large model training, AI inference, and other intelligent computing demands with extremely high latency requirements, traditional communication technologies can no longer meet the needs, and new technological breakthroughs must be found. At the research site, reporters saw a key next-generation communication technology — hollow-core fiber. This fiber has a diameter of less than 0.4 millimeters, too thin for cameras to capture clearly. When magnified 1,000 times, the fiber's interior can be seen as a hollow structure, with 20 thinner glass cylinders embedded in the pipe wall, creating a high-speed transmission track for optical signals. Currently, this technology has been applied between data centers 30 kilometers apart, providing technical support for high-speed data transmission over longer distances. Li Xiaoping, director of computing network planning at China Mobile Ningxia Company, told reporters that compared with traditional solid-core fiber optic cables, hollow-core fiber can reduce transmission loss and latency by more than 30%, truly achieving ultra-low latency, ultra-low loss, and ultra-large bandwidth for high-performance transmission, significantly optimizing the effectiveness and efficiency of large model training. The next-generation communication network not only increases data transmission speed but also makes computing power invocation more flexible. In the dispatch hall of a local computing center, reporters saw that a computing power scheduling platform has been established, gathering scattered and idle computing resources locally to provide invocation services to customers nationwide. Yong Xulong, a product development engineer at Ningxia Telecom Computing Power Operations Company, explained that by directly connecting and managing various computing nodes to the platform through the new network, customers can log in to use idle computing power, which both improves overall computing utilization and enables dispersed computing power to form stronger overall supply capacity. Meanwhile, the platform also supports flexible computing power rental models. Small and medium-sized enterprises can choose to rent one server, two graphics cards, or even one graphics card, with rental durations ranging from as short as one hour to as long as a month, meeting the computing needs of more SMEs through elastic computing power supply.

Computing Power Runs Fast — How Can Electricity Be Guaranteed?

The next-generation communication network has opened up information channels for accelerating computing power and enabling smooth invocation, but the continuously exploding demand for computing power has also brought new real-world tests: as large numbers of computing centers begin construction simultaneously, can electricity supply keep pace? Reporters found during their research in Zhongwei that not only is the number of local computing centers growing rapidly, but construction speed has also increased significantly. Duan Li, general manager of China Mobile Ningxia Computing Power Operations Branch, explained that a few years ago, the delivery cycle for a data center building was about one and a half to two years, but now with all-steel frame structures and modular installation methods, it takes only four and a half to five months to complete and put into use. Right next to the computing construction site, a new substation is under urgent construction. In the past, the construction pace of computing centers and supporting substations was basically aligned, but now the construction period for computing centers has been greatly shortened, while substations still require a year and a half from approval to completion. To match the development needs of the computing industry, the power supply department has begun proactively adjusting its construction planning and pace. Li Jun, director of the Development Planning Department at State Grid Ningxia Electric Power Zhongwei Power Supply Company, stated that the local area is currently advancing超前 planning and超前 construction of the power grid, with four more substations of the same type under construction. Four substations originally planned to start construction in 2028 and 2029 have all been moved up to 2027, truly achieving the goal of extending power grid coverage wherever computing power develops. The overall planning pace of the two networks is gradually aligning, but reporters found during their research that the details requiring coordination go far beyond construction timing. Currently, almost all computing enterprises require the highest-grade power facilities, but in the early stages after a computing center is built, the load is relatively low, often resulting in a "big horse pulling a small cart" waste of power facility resources. Solving this problem requires more precise and detailed supply-demand coordination. Yin Zhangui, deputy director of the Business Expansion and Business Environment Control Center at State Grid Ningxia Electric Power Zhongwei Power Supply Company, explained that targeting the electricity usage characteristics of data centers, the local area adopts a tiered power supply approach: in the early stages after a data center is built, a relatively lower voltage level is used for power supply; after the data center load ramps up to a certain level, it switches to a higher voltage level to meet full-load electricity demand. This model both achieves efficient utilization of power grid resources and promotes dynamic matching between computing demand and power resources. To further improve the precision and greenness of power supply, a national first large-scale computing-power coordination "green electricity direct supply" project was recently completed locally, with photovoltaic power stations laid out facing computing centers. The system estimates computing task volume and electricity demand, then combines wind and solar power generation fluctuation conditions to dynamically arrange power generation and energy storage scheduling. Currently, the green electricity consumption ratio of data centers in Ningxia has reached 87.6%, exceeding the national target by 7.6 percentage points. From超前 power grid supporting infrastructure to tiered precise power supply, and then to efficient green electricity consumption, a new path of computing-power coordination is rapidly taking shape in Ningxia.

Coordinated Planning: Weaving the "Three Networks" into a Single Rope

The coordinated development of the computing-power grid is not just about building substations and laying fiber optics — hardware matching — but also about exploring mechanisms that break down barriers between different industries and departments to form synergy. How can institutional and systemic obstacles be overcome to truly weave the power grid, communication network, and computing power network — the "three networks" — into a single rope? During an interview at the Zhongwei Municipal Data Bureau, reporters saw many computing enterprise staff queuing up to handle business. A recently compiled list of issues shows that there are large numbers of problems urgently needing resolution in areas such as land guarantee, power supply guarantee, and infrastructure construction, with most problems involving multiple functional departments, making coordination difficult. Meng Fanzhen, a section chief at the Zhongwei Municipal Data Bureau, stated that if enterprises were to visit each department individually to handle matters, the time cost would be unsustainable. To address this, the local area established a specialized division-of-labor coordination mechanism, with the Data Bureau taking the lead in unified coordination with relevant departments to concentrate efforts on problem resolution and minimize enterprise processing time. Institutional and systemic innovation around computing power development continues to advance. Reporters compared two planning maps from different times and found that a computing park plan just completed in June had all its idle plots booked by incoming enterprises in less than two months. On the planning map updated in August, the newly added construction area had more than doubled compared to before. Behind the rapid updating of plans lies the coordination challenge of supporting elements. Land, electricity, network, water conservancy, and other supporting resources each have their own construction cycles and rhythms, and any delay in one link will drag down the entire computing park's construction progress. Not long ago, Zhongwei City brought relevant departments and enterprises together to clarify construction tasks, demand nodes, and delivery deadlines for all parties, promoting precise matching of construction rhythms across the power grid, computing power network, and communication network. Ma Zhenjun, deputy director of the Zhongwei Municipal Data Bureau, acknowledged that the element guarantee capacity of the Zhongwei area faces enormous challenges, with power supply, water supply, and network connectivity all being key constraints. To this end, the municipal party committee and government established a special task force co-led by the party secretary and mayor, specifically advancing various supporting guarantee efforts, carrying out scientific planning in advance, and ensuring industrial development needs. As one of the nation's eight major computing hubs, Ningxia is currently continuously accelerating the deep coordination of the computing power network, next-generation communication network, and power grid, with synergistic effects continuously being released: computing scale is expanding rapidly, green electricity consumption ratio leads the nation, and enterprise electricity costs are steadily declining, both providing solid support for the national "East Data, West Computing" strategy and exploring replicable practical pathways for cross-industry coordinated development. Zhang Peng, deputy director of the Ningxia Development and Reform Commission, stated that during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, Ningxia will strive to build a nationally important computing power guarantee base, strategic data disaster recovery base, and computing power scheduling and trading center, accelerating the construction of a computing supply highland that serves the entire country with green, low-carbon, safe, and reliable features.