CITIC Securities says during the 15th Five-Year Plan period China’s compute network could become core infrastructure supporting new productive forces and expanded effective investment. Policy initiatives — including East‑data‑West‑compute, a national integrated compute network, hyperscale intelligent compute clusters and compute‑power/power coordination — together with AI demand are driving a shift from fragmented builds to hub‑based layouts, scale expansion and nationwide dispatch. CITIC estima

2026-08-17

CITIC Securities says during the 15th Five-Year Plan period China’s compute network could become core infrastructure supporting new productive forces and expanded effective investment. Policy initiatives — including East‑data‑West‑compute, a national integrated compute network, hyperscale intelligent compute clusters and compute‑power/power coordination — together with AI demand are driving a shift from fragmented builds to hub‑based layouts, scale expansion and nationwide dispatch. CITIC estimates incremental intelligent compute of about 30 million P and all‑in capex near CNY10 trillion over the period, and argues domestic compute will exhibit both industrial‑product and public‑utility characteristics, potentially becoming a major lever for industrial upgrading and capital formation.