内蒙古乌兰察布市正迅速成为中国最热门的人工智能数据中心建设地。自2016年以来，该市已开工或建成近100座数据中心，承诺建设的项目总容量估计达12.5吉瓦，其中超过七成的承诺是在过去一年内宣布的。乌兰察布吸引企业的原因包括海拔高、冬季寒冷可降低冷却能耗，距离北京较近可减少数据传输延迟，以及得益于风能、太阳能和丰富煤炭资源的低廉电价。值得注意的是，深度求索、字节跳动、阿里巴巴和小红书等中国AI公司正首次大规模投资自有基础设施，而非租用云计算资源。

然而，乌兰察布面临严峻的水资源挑战。该市年降水量仅约350毫米，与美国丹佛相当，当地政府在众多数据中心项目尚未全面运行之前就已难以满足居民用水需求，上月甚至被迫每晚停水七小时以应对高峰用水压力。尽管数据中心在冬季需水量较少，一年中仅两个月需要额外冷却用水，但大量新增基础设施仍可能对该地区的生态环境构成重大压力。

中国政府积极支持在内蒙古建设数据中心的另一个重要原因是消纳过剩的可再生能源产能。风力发电机制造商远景科技本月宣布将在乌兰察布建设一座2吉瓦的AI数据中心，直接连接自有清洁能源。但专家警告，将AI数据中心与可再生能源视为完美组合过于简单化——乌兰察布约37%的电力仍来自煤炭，且数据中心需全天候运行，运营商传统上依赖化石燃料保障供电稳定性。内蒙古正加速用风能和太阳能替代煤炭，但这一转型的速度和程度尚不明朗。

Ulanqab, a city in Inner Mongolia with about 1.5 million residents, has emerged as one of Asia's fastest-growing compute clusters. Nearly 100 data centers have been opened or begun construction there since 2016, with a combined pledged capacity of 12.5 gigawatts—exceeding OpenAI's Stargate Project. The city's appeal lies in its high-elevation cold climate that reduces cooling costs, its relative proximity to Beijing for low-latency data transmission, and some of the cheapest electricity in China. Notably, major Chinese AI companies such as DeepSeek, ByteDance, Alibaba, and Xiaohongshu are now investing in their own infrastructure rather than renting from cloud providers, signaling a shift toward catching up with American peers.

A critical challenge facing Ulanqab's data center boom is water scarcity. The city receives only about 14 inches of rainfall annually, and local authorities are already struggling to meet residential water demand before most planned data center projects become fully operational. Last month, the local water company had to shut off waterworks for seven hours each night to manage peak demand. Although the data centers require additional cooling water during only two months of the year, the cumulative environmental impact of this rapid infrastructure expansion could be significant for the arid region. (Key numbers: 350)

The Chinese government views Inner Mongolia's data center development as a strategic opportunity to absorb the country's surplus renewable energy capacity, creating a perceived win-win of expanding AI infrastructure while boosting clean energy demand. However, experts caution against an overly optimistic narrative: approximately 37 percent of Ulanqab's electricity still comes from coal, and data centers' need for round-the-clock power has traditionally favored fossil fuels for reliability. While the region is actively transitioning from coal to wind and solar, the pace and extent of this shift remain uncertain, meaning the new data centers will continue to rely partly on coal for the foreseeable future.