Overview
- Local governments in Gansu, Guizhou and Inner Mongolia are offering subsidies that cover up to 50% of data-center electricity bills when domestic AI chips such as Huawei and Cambricon are used.
- The programs exclude facilities running Nvidia hardware, reflecting U.S. export restrictions and Beijing’s prohibition on purchasing certain Nvidia accelerators.
- Beneficiaries include large cloud and internet companies such as ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent, according to the reports.
- Some packages combine cash and power discounts large enough to offset roughly a full year of operating expenses, sources said.
- Companies are also adopting technical workarounds, with Alibaba’s reported Aegaeon computing pool cutting reliance on Nvidia GPUs by about 82% for AI models.