Hebei's data centers are concentrated in Zhangjiakou, the prefecture just northwest of Beijing and one of China's eight national data center clusters. Huailai County, next to Beijing's Yanqing district and 40 minutes from the capital by high-speed rail, is the center of the boom; the newer operator ZData has a new center there. Alibaba opened its first self-built data centers in Zhangbei County in 2016 and in 2022 launched a large AI computing center there.
The researcher Andrew Stokols, who visited in 2025, found the green image thinner than advertised. Citing Xinhua, he reported that Zhangjiakou's data centers used 1.859 billion kilowatt-hours, up 43% in a year, with only about 30% from wind and solar; much of the rest came from a Datang Group coal plant in Xuanhua. Villagers told him cooling water comes from groundwater rather than the nearby Guanting Reservoir, in a region already short of groundwater.
Stokols also wrote that data centers bring few jobs or stable tax revenue to the places that host them. A researcher who had met local officials told him Zhangjiakou was selling wind power quotas to pay down debt from its Olympic-era building spree: "The city is essentially mortgaging its future." Closer to Beijing, Huawei runs its northern China cloud hub in Langfang.
Projects not tied to an area
Sites whose records name no county. Everything else is on the pages listed above.
Hebei5
| Project | Company | Status | Power | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alibaba ZhangbeiZhangjiakou | Alibaba | 169 MW | ||
| ByteDance Huailai Campus (Hebei)Zhangjiakou | ByteDance | Not reported | Not reported | Source off site ↗ |
| China Mobile Zhangjiakou (Hebei)Baoding | China Mobile | Not reported | Not reported | |
| Huawei Langfang Cloud Data CenterLangfang | Huawei Cloud | Not reported | ||
| Tencent Huailai Data Center (Hebei)Zhangjiakou | Tencent Cloud | Not reported |
Where this comes from
The reporting above was written from these. Open one and check it yourself.
Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.