As the National Unified Computing Power Network becomes increasingly dense and fully developed, computing power will truly become as accessible and efficiently circulated as water and electricity, providing a continuous and powerful source of momentum for the construction of Digital China. 随着全国一体化算力网不断织密完善，算力将真正实现像水、电一样便捷取用、高效流通，为数字中国建设注入源源不断的澎湃动力。
Liu Tong (刘彤), “Strengthen Computing Power New Type Infrastructure to Consolidate the Foundation of Digital China” (夯实算力新基建 筑牢数字中国底座), People’s Posts and Telecommunications (人民邮电), March 13, 2026, Page 2
China’s National Unified Computing Power Network is Beijing’s answer to the infrastructure demands of the AI era. A recent article by journalist Liu Tong in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology-run newspaper People’s Posts and Telecommunications News frames artificial intelligence as a national requirement for accelerating the construction of New Type Infrastructure. China has spent years expanding computing power at scale. Now the emphasis is shifting to the national system needed to deliver, allocate, and use that computing power efficiently.
The National Unified Computing Power Network gives this shift institutional form. Its goal is to turn fragmented computing resources into a coordinated national capability — one that can support AI development, connect digital infrastructure with the energy system, and eventually make computing power available like a public utility. This is the compute layer of Digital China, and one of the clearest signs that Beijing sees the future of AI as a systems competition.
This analysis is based on journalist Liu Tong’s recent article in People’s Posts and Telecommunications News: “Strengthen Computing Power New Type Infrastructure to Consolidate the Foundation of Digital China.” People’s Posts and Telecommunications News is a national-level industry newspaper directly administered by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Liu’s article examines China’s evolving approach to computing power and its role in the construction of Digital China following new central guidance published in the 2026 Government Work Report and 15th Five-Year Plan.
New Type Infrastructure to National Compute System
Liu Tong’s article frames computing power as the next major buildout of New Type Infrastructure. That framing closely tracks the 15th Five-Year Plan, which places its central guidance on the “Moderately Proactive Construction of New Type Infrastructure” inside Chapter Seven (Constructing a Modern Infrastructure System), a chapter that supports the Plan’s higher goals of “Building a Modern Industrial System and Consolidating and Strengthening the Foundation of the Real Economy.” The Plan calls for deeper implementation of the Eastern Data, Western Computing project, the construction of a multi-level computing power infrastructure system, and the development of the National Unified Computing Power Network. This placement matters. Compute is not being treated as a narrow digital-sector asset. It is being positioned as industrial and economic infrastructure.
That is also the significance of Liu Tong’s title. Strengthening the New Type Infrastructure that enables computing power also means consolidating the foundation of Digital China. China has already spent years expanding computing capacity at scale. But the emphasis is now shifting from accumulation to integration, from “scale expansion” to “value release.” The goal is not only to build more data centers or add more capacity. It is to make computing power available where it is needed, when it is needed, and at a cost that supports broad adoption. General-purpose computing, intelligent computing, and supercomputing are being pulled into a more coordinated architecture. What is taking shape is not just more infrastructure, but a national compute system.
The National Unified Computing Power Network gives this shift institutional form. Its purpose is to connect computing resources across regions, platforms, and providers into a system that can be monitored, scheduled, allocated, and accessed on demand. Key concepts, such as Ultra-Large-Scale Intelligent Computing Clusters, Compute–Energy Coordination, and National Unified Computing Power Monitoring and Scheduling appear explicitly in both the 2026 Government Work Report and the 15th Five-Year Plan. In China’s policy system, this kind of alignment matters. Five-Year Plans define long-term structure, while Government Work Reports drive near-term execution. When the same technical vocabulary appears across both, it signals that computing power has moved beyond experimentation and into coordinated national implementation. The end-state is increasingly clear. Compute is meant to become more like a utility — standardized, networked, and available across regions and sectors as a basic input for AI, industrial modernization, and Digital China.
Compute–Energy Coordination
Liu Tong’s article makes clear that China’s compute strategy is also an energy strategy. The relationship is captured in the phrase she cites: “the end of AI is computing power, and the end of computing power is electricity.” The point is simple but important. As AI models, cloud services, and intelligent computing clusters expand, the limiting factor is no longer only chips, algorithms, or data centers. It is the power system needed to sustain them.
This is why Compute–Energy Coordination has become one of the named New Type Infrastructure projects in 15th Five-Year Plan guidance. Computing demand is concentrated in the eastern regions, while energy resources are more abundant in the west and other resource-rich areas. Addressing this issue is embodied in the Eastern Data, Western Computing project. The challenge is not only to build more computing capacity, but to align that capacity with power generation, transmission, storage, and cost. Liu Tong points to emerging models such as direct connections between computing centers and energy producers, suggesting a deeper integration of digital infrastructure with the energy system. In this sense, the National Unified Computing Power Network is not just a digital project. It is part of a larger effort to build the energy foundation for AI at national scale.
From Fragmentation to Orchestration
A second central problem is fragmentation. After years of rapid buildout, computing resources are spread across regions, providers, platforms, and technical architectures. The problem is no longer simply whether China has enough computing power, but whether that computing power can be located, allocated, and used efficiently. This is the purpose of National Unified Computing Power Monitoring and Scheduling: to make fragmented resources visible, interoperable, and dispatchable across the system. In practical terms, China is trying to add a coordination layer above the infrastructure itself — moving from scattered assets to managed flows, and from raw capacity to a national compute system that can actually operate at scale.
The Emerging Compute Economy
This same logic also points to the emergence of a computing power economy. This follows naturally from the National Unified Computing Power Network itself. If compute is to function less like a fixed asset and more like a utility, it must be priced, allocated, traded, and accessed through more mature market mechanisms. That is why policymakers are focused on gaps in price formation, transaction matching, pricing indices, and service standards, as Liu Tong describes. Proposals such as pricing compute by “yuan per million tokens” and building national computing power exchanges suggest that China is not only trying to coordinate computing resources technically, but to turn them into an economic resource that can circulate through the system. In this model, computing power is no longer just consumed by individual firms or platforms. It becomes a governed market input for AI, industrial upgrading, and the broader construction of Digital China.
The System Behind the Strategy
Liu Tong’s conclusion points to the end-state China is trying to build: a system in which computing power becomes as accessible and efficiently circulated as water or electricity. That analogy is important. It shows that compute is no longer being treated as a specialized technical resource used only by advanced firms or research institutions. It is being imagined as a basic input for the economy — standardized, networked, and available on demand across regions, industries, and public services. Reaching that point requires more than data centers. It requires the integration of computing infrastructure, energy systems, scheduling mechanisms, market tools, and governance capacity into a unified national architecture.
This is the system behind the strategy. China’s leaders increasingly appear to see the future of AI not just a contest over models, algorithms, or applications, but as a competition over the infrastructure that makes large-scale intelligent transformation possible. The National Unified Computing Power Network is part of that bet. If successful, it will strengthen the compute layer of Digital China and give Beijing a national platform for mobilizing computing power across the economy. The competition, in this sense, is no longer just about who innovates first. It is about who can build the system that makes innovation possible.
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