… the “Eastern Data, Western Computing” project will surely have a profound impact on cooperation in the “One Belt, One Road” digital economy … Just as goods need a place to be transshipped, stored, and processed, large amounts of data also need a place to be stored and processed. The “Eastern Data, Western Computing” project can meet this need … By transforming the ability to process data into a new competitive advantage for development … the western region becomes the “server” for the “Digital Silk Road” and continuously promotes construction of the “Digital Silk Road” in a deeper and more realistic way.

…我国推进“东数西算”工程，必将对“一带一路”数字经济合作形成深远影响 … 正像货物需要转运仓储、加工的地点一样，大量的数据也需要存储、处理的地点。”东数西算” 工程可以满足这些需求 … 把数据处理能力转化为新的竞争发展优势，将西部地区打造为“数字丝绸之路”的“服务器”，不断推动“数字丝绸之路”建设走深走实。

China Trade News, A ‘One Belt, One Road’ Perspective on ‘Eastern Data, Western Computing,’ April 12, 2022

Executive Summary

An April 2022 China Trade News commentary proposes using China’s western computing capacity to support the Digital Silk Road. It connects domestic infrastructure construction with international digital cooperation, while identifying requirements for data circulation, standards, and supporting resources. The proposal offers an early indication of how domestic compute capabilities could serve China’s international digital ambitions.

Domestic Computing Capacity, International Ambitions

How might infrastructure built to rebalance computing capacity within China also support its international ambitions? An April 2022 China Trade News commentary offers one answer through the Digital Silk Road.

Published on April 12, 2022, the commentary explores how Eastern Data, Western Computing could support digital economic cooperation with Belt and Road countries. Its assessment is optimistic, but the proposed connection deserves attention.

Eastern Data, Western Computing is a national-level system-engineering project led by the National Development and Reform Commission. It supports the construction of a nationally integrated big data center system and falls within China’s broader New Type Infrastructure framework.

China Trade News is affiliated with the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), China’s national trade and investment promotion institution. The commentary therefore provides a window into China’s trade-promotion discourse, rather than a formal statement of government policy.

The author begins with the growing importance of the digital economy and cross-border e-commerce in China’s relations with Belt and Road countries. Chinese digital enterprises are expanding overseas. Could China’s domestic computing infrastructure help support that expansion? The commentary identifies three requirements for realizing this potential.

First, China must improve regional coordination and facilitate the circulation of data elements. Computing capacity alone is insufficient. A functioning data market also requires foundational institutions and standards governing data security, rights protection, and cross-border transmission.

Second, the author proposes using western China’s computing capacity to support the Digital Silk Road. Physical connectivity creates only part of the foundation for a digital economy. Data, services, capital, and digital content must also circulate. Western China could supply the storage and processing capacity behind those activities, becoming what the author calls the Digital Silk Road’s “server.”

Third, the commentary presents the project as a potential development model for Belt and Road partners. Infrastructure would need to be accompanied by talent, capital, and technology. Chinese enterprises are encouraged to help meet those needs while advancing their own international expansion.

These are proposals and anticipated benefits, not evidence that such an international system was already operating. Their significance lies in the strategic connection they draw.

Read this way, the commentary offers an early glimpse of how China’s domestic digital construction could acquire an international role. The ambition extends beyond exporting equipment or building networks abroad: China’s own data and computing systems could become a supporting foundation for partner countries’ digital economies. That is the larger possibility worth watching.

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