Beijing targets computing capacity of 200,000 PFLOPs by 2027 to fuel AI growth

BEIJING, Jan. 22 (Xinhua) -- Beijing plans to accumulate a total computing capacity of approximately 200,000 petaflops by 2027, as part of the city's efforts to support the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) and other digital industries.

At a press conference held by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology on Thursday, Zhang Jinrui, deputy director of the digital industry division, announced that Beijing will establish a cross-regional computing supply system, develop large-scale computing clusters in neighboring Hebei Province and Tianjin Municipality, both in north China, through partnerships with telecom operators and internet firms, and expand supply corridors in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and Qinghai Province, both located in northwest China, to gather high-quality resources for foundational AI model training.

One PFLOP, or petaflop, equals a one quadrillion floating-point operation per second.

In 2026, Beijing will also advance green transformations for 40 existing data centers, Zhang said.

Beijing has since 2023 allocated over 700 million yuan (about 100 million U.S. dollars) in computing subsidies, reducing computing costs for nearly 100 enterprises by more than 15 percent and raising overall computing utilization to over 85 percent, Zhang noted. ■