China’s ‘potato capital’ cultivates new crop of data centres as AI boom takes root

Ulanqab, long known as China’s “potato capital”, is rapidly building AI data centres, turning farmland into sites for computing infrastructure. The boom is bringing new income and business to some residents, while raising questions about how the energy- and water-intensive facilities can be sustained in a drought-prone region.

Farmer Zhang Zhiyong received more than 200,000 yuan (about US$30,000) for giving up 0.7 hectares of his farmland; he now grows potatoes on about 670 square metres and rents out most of the rest. Ulanqab produces nearly four million tonnes of potatoes a year, but has also signed 109 computing-centre projects, with AI-focused computing accounting for over 90 per cent of its capacity as of August. President Xi Jinping visited a major data-centre zone in October and called for closer coordination of computing, electricity and water resources.