Power consumption in the Guian New Area grew 33.69 percent year over year during the first half of 2026, driven by rapid expansion across artificial intelligence infrastructure and data center clusters in southwestern China.
Total electricity usage across the development zone reached 3.12 billion kilowatt-hours through late June, according to data released Thursday by the China Southern Power Grid Guian Power Supply Bureau.
The digital economy served as the primary driver of the surge. Electricity consumed by big data operations reached 1.93 billion kilowatt-hours, representing a 52.2 percent year-over-year increase—substantially outpacing general industrial power growth.
"Electricity consumption expanded steadily thanks to regional industrial upgrades and the accelerated growth of the digital economy," Liu Yunbing, General Manager of the Marketing Department at the Guian Power Supply Bureau, told local media. "Emerging sectors such as big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence gathered momentum this year, serving as the core engine pulling up power demand."
Designated as a core national data hub under China's "East Data, West Computing" strategy, Guian now hosts 27 large and ultra-large data centers, utilizing local climate conditions and reliable grid access to process compute-intensive workloads originating from eastern coastal cities.
At the Guian Supercomputing Center, processing equipment capable of 30 quadrillion calculations per second consumes more than 300 times the electricity of standard computing installations to render digital animation for major film productions. To maintain operational stability, grid operators deployed dedicated shared-line power supplies configured specifically for high-density computing loads.
Power demand was further boosted by the recent commissioning of major financial infrastructure projects, including the Bank of Communications Guian Data Center. The facility, which features a transformer capacity of 94,000 kilovolt-amperes supported by dual dedicated supply lines, was brought online following a 20-day grid connection process to handle high-reliability financial data processing.
Grid officials confirmed they will continue expanding transmission capacity and streamlining approval processes to accommodate incoming computing projects, high-end manufacturing sites, and AI data centers planned across the region.