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 Bidirectional Empowerment of Artificial Intelligence and Energy” (hereinafter referred to as the “Action Plan”). The goal is to significantly enhance the clean energy supply capacity of AI computing power facilities and the application level of AI in the energy sector by 2030, establishing a new development pattern of deep integration between AI and energy.

Key Focus Areas

The Action Plan focuses on supporting the development of AI through energy and empowering energy transformation with AI. It outlines 29 key tasks aimed at ensuring a safe and reliable energy supply for computing power facilities, promoting the green and low-carbon transformation of these facilities, facilitating efficient economic collaboration between computing power and electricity, opening high-value application scenarios for AI in the energy sector, exploring the value of energy data, and strengthening innovation in AI models within the energy field.

Ensuring Reliable Energy Supply

The end of computing power is electricity. How can we ensure a safe and reliable energy supply for computing power facilities? The Action Plan proposes coordinating the planning and layout of large renewable energy bases with national computing power hubs, promoting the orderly and reasonable aggregation of computing power facilities and internet backbone direct connection points in areas rich in renewable energy, and facilitating the local consumption of renewable energy. It also suggests exploring direct connections for energy sources like nuclear power and hydrogen to supply computing power facilities, and encourages the configuration of grid-type energy storage to enhance power supply stability and active support for the power system.

Green and Low-Carbon Transformation

Green electricity is essential for promoting the green and low-carbon transformation of computing power facilities. The Action Plan emphasizes strengthening the planning and guidance of computing power facility projects, using the proportion of green electricity consumption as an important reference indicator, and enhancing the level of green computing power supply. It supports computing power facilities in participating in green certificate and green electricity trading to increase the proportion of green electricity consumption. The plan encourages the green and low-carbon transformation of backup power sources, urging the replacement of traditional fuel generators with clean energy. Based on the type of computing tasks, it implements classified management for computing power facilities, encouraging those with flexible adjustment capabilities to engage in direct connections with green electricity. Research will be conducted to incentivize computing power facilities to adopt direct connections to green electricity through pricing policies, continuously improving the green development level of these facilities.

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 like 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 launched the world’s first 100% green electricity direct supply data center in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, in collaboration with Envision Group.

The Competition in AI

“The competition in the AI era appears to be a contest of computing power, but in reality, it is a battle of power systems,” said Tian Qingjun, Senior Vice President of Envision. He believes that in the current process of AI industry implementation, stable, low-cost, and sustainable zero-carbon electricity supply has become a key factor limiting project implementation. This is also the core starting point for the collaboration to promote green electricity direct supply data centers. Leveraging Envision’s comprehensive self-research capabilities from wind turbines, energy storage to AI scheduling systems, the project can achieve a reduction in comprehensive energy costs of over 40% and reduce carbon emissions by approximately 180,000 tons annually.

Enhancing Synergy Between Computing Power and Electricity

A key aspect of bidirectional empowerment between AI and energy is strengthening the collaborative 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 power facilities in optimizing energy management and various forms of computing power scheduling across networks and regions, thereby enhancing the economic efficiency of computing power facilities. It encourages computing power facilities to participate as flexible adjustable resources on the load side in power grid operations, improving the regulation capability of the power system and achieving bidirectional efficiency enhancement between computing power facilities and the power system.

Future Prospects

Tian Qingjun mentioned that China’s core strength in the global AI race lies in having the world’s most complete renewable energy industry chain. The industry can fully transform this industrial advantage into a long-term competitive edge in the AI sector. “The end of AI is renewable energy; in the future, whoever can first connect the entire chain from green electricity production to computing power implementation 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 and energy industry demands, and accelerating the implementation of AI across the entire chain of energy planning, exploration and development, production operation, equipment maintenance, operation, and safety management. Specific scenarios include reliable and flexible supply of clean energy, safe and stable operation of power grids, intelligent and efficient development of coal, efficient exploration and development of oil and gas with smart pipelines, and innovative integration of new energy business formats.

Market Opportunities

Regarding the market dividends brought by policies, Tian Qingjun predicts that with the large-scale promotion of the green electricity direct connection model, the explosion of AI data centers, green hydrogen, ammonia, and new (semi) off-grid power systems 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 instance, AI computing centers require a power supply reliability exceeding 99.99%, and under the green electricity direct connection model, energy storage will transition from being an “optional” component to a “necessary” one.