Introduction

The National Development and Reform Commission, the National Energy Administration, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the National Data Bureau recently issued the “Action Plan for Promoting the Synergy Between Artificial Intelligence and Energy”. The plan aims to significantly enhance the clean energy supply capabilities for AI computing facilities and the application level of AI in the energy sector by 2030, establishing a new pattern of deep integration between AI and energy.

Main Objectives

The action plan focuses on two main lines: supporting the development of AI through energy and enabling energy transformation with AI. It outlines 29 key tasks aimed at ensuring a safe and reliable energy supply for computing facilities, promoting a green and low-carbon transition for these facilities, enhancing economic collaboration between computing power and electricity, opening high-value application scenarios for AI in the energy sector, exploring data value in the energy field, and strengthening innovation in AI models related to energy.

Ensuring Reliable Energy Supply

The action plan emphasizes the importance of electricity for computing power. To ensure a safe and reliable energy supply for computing facilities, it proposes coordinating the planning of large renewable energy bases with national computing power hubs. This includes promoting the orderly aggregation of computing facilities and internet backbone direct connection points in areas rich in renewable energy, facilitating local consumption of renewable energy. It also encourages exploring direct energy supply methods from nuclear power and hydrogen energy to computing facilities, and advocates for the configuration of networked energy storage to enhance supply stability and active support for the power system.

Green and Low-Carbon Transition

A crucial aspect of the transition to green computing facilities is the use of green electricity. The action plan specifies that project layout planning for computing facilities should be guided by the proportion of green electricity used, enhancing the level of green computing supply. It supports computing facilities in participating in green certificate and green electricity trading to increase their consumption of green electricity. The plan encourages the transformation of backup power sources to green and low-carbon alternatives, promoting the replacement of traditional fuel generators with clean energy sources. Based on the type of computing tasks, it proposes classified management of computing facilities, encouraging those with flexible adjustment capabilities to adopt direct connections to green electricity. Policies will be researched to incentivize computing facilities to adopt direct connections to green electricity, thereby increasing the proportion of renewable energy consumed.

Industry Actions

Relevant companies are already taking action. Li Qiang, Vice President of Tencent Group, introduced that Tencent Cloud is developing a model for direct supply of green electricity to computing power, allowing clean energy from wind and solar to be delivered directly to data centers without passing through the public grid, achieving precise matching of computing power and electricity. They have already established the world’s first 100% green electricity direct supply data center in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, in collaboration with Envision Group.

The Role of Power Systems

“The competition in the AI era is ostensibly about computing power, but fundamentally, it is a contest of power systems,” said Tian Qingjun, Senior Vice President of Envision. He noted that during the current implementation of AI projects, stable, low-cost, and sustainable zero-carbon electricity supply has become a critical factor limiting project deployment. This is also the core motivation behind their collaboration to promote green electricity direct supply data centers. Leveraging Envision’s full-stack self-developed capabilities from wind turbines, energy storage to AI scheduling systems, the project can achieve over a 40% reduction in overall energy costs and reduce carbon emissions by approximately 180,000 tons annually.

Enhancing Synergy Between Computing Power and Electricity

A key to the synergy between AI and energy is strengthening the coordinated operation of computing power and electricity. The action plan proposes establishing an interactive mechanism between computing power and electricity, using electricity market price signals to guide computing facilities in optimizing energy management and various forms of computing power scheduling across networks and regions, thereby enhancing economic efficiency. It encourages computing facilities to participate as flexible adjustable resources on the load side of the power grid, improving the adjustment capability of the power system and achieving mutual efficiency gains between computing facilities and the power system.

Future Prospects

Tian Qingjun believes that China’s core strength in the global AI race lies in having the most complete renewable energy industry chain. The industry can fully convert this advantage into a long-term competitive edge in AI. “The end of AI is renewable energy; the first to connect the entire chain from green electricity production to computing power deployment will gain true initiative in the global AI industry competition.”

High-Value Application Scenarios

Notably, the action plan clearly states the need to open high-value application scenarios for AI in the energy sector. It organizes pilot projects for the integration of AI applications in the energy field, continuously selecting benchmark applications that deeply integrate AI with energy industry demands, and accelerating the implementation of AI across the entire chain of energy planning, exploration, production, operation, equipment maintenance, and safety management. Specific scenarios include reliable and flexible supply of clean energy, safe and stable operation of the power grid, intelligent and efficient coal development, efficient exploration and development of oil and gas, smart pipeline management, and innovative integration of new energy business models.

Market Opportunities

Regarding the market benefits brought by policies, Tian Qingjun anticipates that with the large-scale promotion of the green electricity direct connection model, the explosion of AI data centers and new (semi) off-grid power systems like green hydrogen and ammonia will create a huge incremental market for energy storage. In the future, energy storage will shift significantly from current large grid service applications to load-side applications. For example, AI computing centers require a power supply reliability exceeding 99.99%. Under the green electricity direct connection model, energy storage will transition from being an “optional” component to a “necessary” one.