Across the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, potato farmers are working alongside a rapidly expanding digital industry.
In Ulanqab, a city known as China’s “potato capital”, huge data centres are rising across the landscape as Beijing accelerates its artificial intelligence ambitions.
Hundreds of workers are building new facilities, with cranes lifting equipment and construction crews working on successive phases of the projects.
“This is China speed,” one worker joked.
The infrastructure is central to China’s effort to expand AI across its economy and society. Beijing aims to integrate artificial intelligence into 90% of industries and society by 2030.
The expansion is also helping China build a growing pool of AI engineers and researchers.
Jack Zhang of the University of Science and Technology of China returned to the country after studying at Yale University and Cambridge University.
“I wanted to take some of the AI work I was doing in the lab and apply it to human health and medicine,” he said. “That requires more resources, more people and sometimes more government support, which can be difficult to access overseas.”
Zhang said fewer Chinese students and researchers are now moving to the US, while more are returning to China.
China’s growing AI capabilities are a major factor in the technology competition with the US.
US President Donald Trump has said, “Whoever wins AI, wins,” while Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei has argued that Washington should maintain restrictions on the sale of advanced chips and equipment to China.
Amodei has also warned that a Chinese lead in AI could pose serious risks to the US and the wider world.
Beijing has rejected such concerns. China’s state-run Global Times described US efforts to limit China’s AI development as part of a “Cold War playbook” aimed at containing the country’s rise.
China is also promoting a different approach to AI development.
President Xi Jinping has encouraged Chinese companies to develop more affordable open-source models, allowing users, businesses and countries to modify the technology.
That approach contrasts with the closed models used by companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic, whose underlying designs are not publicly available.
Chinese companies have used open-source development to share technology and accelerate innovation. The approach has also helped them work around restrictions on access to advanced computer chips.
Beijing wants a greater role in shaping international rules for AI. Xi has repeatedly called for stronger regulation and a global framework governing the technology.
That puts AI safety and regulation at the centre of discussions between Washington and Beijing.
Yet China’s rapid expansion shows little sign of slowing.
Hundreds of data centres are being built or expanded in areas including Ulanqab, Ningxia, Gansu and Guizhou for companies including Huawei, ByteDance and DeepSeek.
The locations offer cheaper land, cooler weather and large renewable energy resources. Wind and solar power have expanded rapidly in these regions, reducing the cost and energy demands of data-centre operations.
There are also environmental and social concerns.
China wants most of its data centres to run on green energy by 2030, but parts of the electricity grid still rely on coal. Water supplies are another concern in the dry regions of Inner Mongolia.
Some villages have also been relocated to make way for development, although the scale of the relocations and compensation offered to residents remain difficult to establish.
One local resident, who spoke anonymously, questioned the benefits of the data centres.
“This big data has absolutely nothing to do with ordinary people,” he said. “What benefits has it brought us?”
Some residents said they had found few jobs at the facilities and expressed concern that further development could threaten their farmland.
Others see the expansion differently.
A local man identified by his surname, Zhang, said his children had found jobs linked to the new development.
“China is now at the forefront of the world,” he said.
China is also producing a much larger pool of science and technology graduates than the US, creating a growing base of potential AI researchers and developers.
AI developer Dang Ronghao, 27, who works for a leading technology company, said Chinese researchers are increasingly connecting AI with fields such as nuclear fusion, astrophysics, new materials and drug development.
“I think we are entering a good era,” he said.
Still, some academics argue that China’s research environment remains less open than they would like.
Professor Liu Jun of Tsinghua University’s Department of Statistics and Data Science, who has also taught at Harvard and Stanford, said he encourages students to challenge ideas more often.
“It’s not as open as I wish,” he said. “I keep encouraging students here to ask more questions, to challenge more, but that’s hard to change. I think partly it’s culture, partly it’s the system.”
Beyond China’s technology hubs, many people remain focused on economic pressures such as weak growth, youth unemployment and falling property prices.
In rural Inner Mongolia, some farmers say the AI boom has made little difference to their lives.
“Big data and all that pretty good but it has nothing to do with me,” one farmer said while checking on his sheep.
He said he rarely uses the internet and has seen little change in his daily life.
“There haven’t really been any changes for me. I don’t know about the future,” he said.
That gap between Beijing’s technology ambitions and the experiences of ordinary people could become an important challenge as China pushes towards an increasingly AI-driven economy.
Erizia Rubyjeana
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