China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has laid out an ambitious five-year plan to expand the country’s AI computing capacity to 9,800 eflops by 2030 — more than four times its current level. The plan calls for roughly 3.8 trillion yuan, or about $532 billion, in cumulative investment in information infrastructure between 2026 and 2030.
China had already reached 2,185 eflops of intelligent computing capacity by the end of June, a jump of 177 percent from a year earlier, with capacity climbing further to roughly 2,450 eflops by the end of July. The plan envisions AI computing clusters containing tens of thousands of accelerator cards, with some clusters exceeding 100,000 cards, while emphasizing the use of domestically produced chips rather than relying on foreign suppliers.
The buildout comes as China faces continued restrictions on access to the most advanced foreign-made AI chips, pushing the country to invest heavily in domestic semiconductor capacity even as it scales up raw computing power. The scale of the planned investment underscores how AI infrastructure has become a central pillar of industrial policy in China, comparable in ambition to the country’s historic investments in areas like high-speed rail and telecommunications.
The announcement adds to a broader global pattern in which major economies are treating AI compute capacity as strategically important infrastructure, with the United States, European Union, and Gulf states all pursuing their own large-scale data-center and chip investment plans in parallel.