China Unicom Launches $390m AI Data Centre with Domestic Processors Amid Trade Restrictions
China’s telecommunications giant, China Unicom, unveiled plans to establish a $390 million AI data center in Xining, Qinghai province. Powered exclusively by locally manufactured processors, this facility will be the backbone of the company’s second-largest mobile network in China.
The announcement was made on state broadcaster CCTV earlier this week. The current setup of the data center houses 23,000 AI processors, providing a computing power of 3,579 petaflops. With an aim to expand, the data center aims to increase its computing capacity to 20,000 petaflops upon completion.
A petaflop represents a computer’s processing speed equivalent to one quadrillion floating-point operations per second. This high computational power enables the system to handle complex AI model training and inference workloads that necessitate massive parallel processing.
The project serves as a testament to China’s strategic approach towards building AI infrastructure using indigenous semiconductor technology, rather than relying on foreign chips. The increased urgency for this shift stems from trade restrictions that have limited Chinese companies’ access to advanced processors from American suppliers such as Nvidia.
Alibaba’s semiconductor unit, T-Head, contributes approximately 72% of the processors deployed in the facility. This company focuses on developing custom chips for cloud computing and AI applications, positioning itself as a strong competitor within the domestic market against international suppliers.
