China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has led the issuance of new plan governing the development of key data infrastructure.
On 8 December NDRC led the issuance of the “Implementation Plan for Thoroughly Fulfilling Requirements for Peak Carbon and Carbon Neutrality Goals and Driving the Green, High-quality Development of Data Centres, 5G and Other New Infrastructure” (贯彻落实碳达峰碳中和目标要求 推动数据中心和5G等新型基础设施绿色高质量发展实施方案).
The document provides plans and outlines for the development of transportation, energy, industrial and municipal infrastructure, and the simultaneous development of 5G networks.
The Plan focuses in particular on data centre development, calling for “all locations to strengthen overall guidance of data centre development, and firmly avoid the blind and disorderly development of data centres.”
It also calls for the “optimization of data centre development arrangements, and the development of new large-scale and ultra-large data centres that will in principle be arranged within the scope of national hub node data centre clusters.”
The central government will play the decisive role in the development of data centres, with the Plan stipulating that for the development of new data centres outside of national hub nodes, local government are not permitted to provide preferential policies in areas such as land and taxation.
