According to Zhitong Finance APP, Tianfeng Securities released a research report stating that in January 2025, DeepSeek will be launched, significantly increasing the listing rate of third-party data centers in China. The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology predicts that by 2030, the electricity demand for data centers in China will reach 300-700 billion kilowatt-hours, accounting for 2.3%-5.3% of the total electricity consumption in society, corresponding to a compound annual growth rate of 10.4%-27.1% from 2024 to 2030. In the era of data economy, computing power has become a new productive force, driving high growth in electricity demand.
Considering the green transformation of computing power, it is recommended to pay attention to new energy operators: CHINA LONGYUAN (001289.SZ), Datang New Energy (01798), Xintian Green Energy (00956), Three Gorges Energy (600905.SH), Huadian New Energy (600930.SH), Jinko Technology (601778.SH), ENN Wind Power (601016.SH), Solar Energy (000591.SZ), CGN New Energy (01811);
For thermal power transformation to new energy operators: CHINA RES POWER (00836), HPI (600011.SH), GDPD (600795.SH);
Nuclear power operators: China Nuclear Power (601985.SH), CGN Power (003816.SZ);
Waste incineration power generation companies: Hanlan Environment (600323.SH), Green Power (601330.SH), Everbright Environment (00257);
Liquid cooling equipment: Southern Pump Industry (300145.SZ), Ice Wheel Environment (000811.SZ), Shenling Environment (301018.SZ), etc.
Q1: How is the progress of China's data center industry?
In the era of data economy, computing power has become the core demand of data centers. China's data centers have gone through the stages of network centers, IT centers, and cloud centers. After 2020, with the arrival of the digital economy era, data and computing power have become new means of production and productive forces, with intelligent computing demand becoming the core development engine driving the growth of data centers. It is expected that by 2024, the market size of the data center industry in mainland China will reach 304.8 billion yuan, and the standard rack size will exceed 10 million racks, both achieving over 20% year-on-year high growth.
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The &#34;East Data West Computing&#34; project is being deeply implemented, with China's data centers laying out &#34;eight major hubs and ten clusters&#34; nationwide. In 2023, according to the distribution of computing power centers by rack area, the proportions of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei hub node, Yangtze River Delta hub node, other six major hub nodes, and non-hub nodes are 21.5%, 24.5%, 25.5%, and 28.5%, respectively.
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From the signing situation in 2023, China's data centers show a significant distribution characteristic of &#34;hot in the east and cold in the west.&#34; The North China region centered around &#34;Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei,&#34; the East China region centered around the &#34;Yangtze River Delta,&#34; and the South China region centered around the &#34;Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area&#34; have become the main gathering places for data centers due to their developed economies, concentration of internet companies, and high market demand. Their signing rates and service fee prices are generally higher than those in other regions.
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Q2, Will AI drive the prosperity of data centers upward?
Drawing on overseas experience, Deepseek may drive the prosperity of China's data centers upward.
In 2022, ChatGPT emerged, and the parameter scale of large models is proportional to the consumption of computing power; the larger the parameter scale, the greater the demand for computing power. The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology predicts that the global computing power scale will continue to grow at a rate of over 50% in the next five years, and by 2030, global computing power will exceed 16 ZFlops, with intelligent computing power accounting for more than 90%.
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By the end of 2023, the vacancy rate of data centers in most mature global markets has fallen below 10%, with core areas dropping to below 5% (according to data from Cushman &amp; Wakefield), driving up data center rental prices.
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China's data center supply and demand cycle is misaligned, affected by an investment boom and slowing demand, leading to pressure on both service fees and listing rates from 2020 to 2023. In January 2025, DeepSeek will be released, significantly increasing the listing rate of third-party data centers in China. According to ZhiShi Consulting, by the end of 2024, the national listing rate of third-party computing power centers will be only 69%, and the computing power centers in the Beijing area and the Yangtze River Delta region may be the first to achieve a supply-demand reversal.
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Q3, Is the &#34;end&#34; of AI electricity?
Is the &#34;end&#34; of AI electricity? The contradiction between demand and energy forces the green transformation of computing power. As the operational carrier of computing power services, electricity costs usually account for more than 50% of the total operating costs of data centers. The IEA predicts that by 2030, global data center electricity consumption will increase to about 945 TWh, more than doubling from 2024 (415 TWh), with a compound annual growth rate of about 15% from 2024 to 2030
At the same time, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology predicts that by 2030, China's data center electricity demand will reach 300-700 billion kilowatt-hours, accounting for 2.3%-5.3% of the total electricity consumption in society, corresponding to a compound annual growth rate of 10.4%-27.1% from 2024 to 2030.
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The contradiction between demand and energy forces a transformation towards green computing power: improving the efficiency of computing power equipment (energy consumption of IT equipment, computing efficiency [CE], storage efficiency [SE], etc.), enhancing the energy-saving of computing power carriers (power usage effectiveness [PUE], water usage efficiency [WUE], etc.), promoting the clean synergy of computing energy (renewable energy usage rate, application volume of green electricity and green certificates in data centers, etc.), and enabling the synergy of computing power/applications

600011

00902

003816

01816

600795

001289

00916

00836

Tianfeng Securities released a research report indicating that by 2030, China's electricity demand for data centers is expected to reach 300-700 billion kilowatt-hours, accounting for 2.3%-5.3% of the total electricity consumption in society. This growth will drive a significant increase in electricity demand, with a compound annual growth rate of 10.4%-27.1%. The report suggests paying attention to new energy operators and thermal power companies transitioning to new energy to seize the opportunities brought by the green transformation of computing power

Zhitong

HUANENG POWER

CGN Power

CGN POWER

GDPD

CHINA LONGYUAN

CHINA RES POWER

Tianfeng Securities: AI drives the prosperity of data centers upward. How much is the electricity demand?