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The global surge in artificial intelligence is transforming the core infrastructure of the digital economy—computing power—from a simple stacking of hardware to efficiency optimization. A common saying in the energy industry is: "The end of artificial intelligence is computing power, and the end of computing power is electricity." However, the intelligent computing industry still faces key challenges such as the integration and synergy of computing and networks, precise supply and demand matching, and green energy saving. 。

The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China advocated accelerating the green transformation of development methods, developing green and low-carbon industries, promoting green consumption, and fostering green and low-carbon production and lifestyles. It also emphasized vigorously developing the digital economy and building a digital China. Green electricity and computing power, as key productive forces in the comprehensive green and digital transformation of the economy and society, are gradually moving towards "integrated symbiosis," with electricity driving the green upgrading of computing power and computing power empowering the digital transformation of electricity, forming a virtuous cycle of upward growth and promoting high-quality development of the energy digital economy.

♦ Electricity Drives the Green and Sustainable Development of Diversified Computing Power

Electricity is an indispensable foundation for the development of diversified computing power. It not only meets the electricity needs of diversified computing power and promotes the development of green computing power, but also provides abundant intelligent application scenarios and massive high-quality data, playing an important role in the green and sustainable development of computing power. Transforming the "electricity-guzzling" into a "green giant," the integration of computing and networks becomes the key to breaking the deadlock.

First, it meets the electricity demand for the large-scale development of diversified computing power. The rapid rise of artificial intelligence applications, represented by AIGC (generative artificial intelligence), and large model training have led to an explosive increase in the demand for intelligent computing power. At the same time, driven by the rapid development of data centers in China, the scale of basic computing power will continue to grow. Basic computing power, intelligent computing power, and supercomputing power are mutually integrated and penetrate each other to meet the needs of diversified intelligent scenarios for diversified computing power. However, the large-scale development of computing power consumes a large amount of energy. According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in 2022, China's basic infrastructure computing power reached 180 EFlops (quintillion floating-point operations per second), and data center power consumption reached 270 billion kilowatt-hours. It is estimated that by 2025, China's computing power will exceed 300 EFlops, with intelligent computing power accounting for 35%, and data center power consumption will reach 350 billion kilowatt-hours. According to the prediction of the "Green Computing Power White Paper (2023)", by 2030, China's data center power consumption will reach 590 billion kilowatt-hours.

Second, it supports the green and low-carbon transformation of the computing power industry. The large-scale deployment and application of computing power not only consumes a large amount of energy but also brings carbon emissions. With the acceleration of the construction of new power systems, the large-scale development of new energy, the continuous optimization of power generation structures, and the continuous increase in the proportion of green electricity, the average grid emission factors in various provinces will steadily decline, leading to a reduction in the indirect carbon emissions of data centers. The emission reduction potential is estimated to be approximately 30 million tons and 80 million tons in 2025 and 2030, respectively, promoting the green and sustainable development of the computing power industry.

Third, it provides a wide variety of intelligent application scenarios. As the main force in achieving the "dual carbon" goals, electricity has abundant application scenarios in various links of generation, transmission, transformation, distribution, and use. In addition, intelligent auxiliary decision-making and control of the power grid, and the interaction and coupling of the electricity market and the carbon market also require computing power empowerment. Driven by the huge application demand and financial support in the power industry, the deployment of computing power facilities and technological iteration will accelerate, achieving an upgrade in the development of the computing power industry.

Image source: Excerpt from the "Green Computing Power White Paper 2023"

♦ Computing Power Empowers the High-Quality Construction of New Power Systems

Computing power is the key support for the digital transformation of electricity. Combined with digital technologies, computing power will play an important role in promoting the consumption of clean energy, enhancing the operational safety of the power grid, and improving the economic efficiency of power supply. Assisting in the construction of new power systems and promoting the integration of computing power and green electricity also requires attention to safety and economy. First, data centers have very high requirements for the safe and stable supply of electricity, which poses a challenge to new energy power generation such as wind power and photovoltaics, which have intermittent and fluctuating characteristics. Second, the electricity cost of data centers often accounts for more than half of the total operating cost, and in some cases even reaches 60% to 70%, so measures need to be taken to ensure that green electricity is both reliable and affordable.

♦ Efficient Synergy between Computing Power and Energy Becomes a Future Trend

Zheng Weimin, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that computing power is the foundation of the digital economy, interconnection is the basis of the efficiency of computing power, and efficient synergy between computing power and energy is the future of computing power evolution.

Wang Yongzhen, associate professor of the Department of Energy and Power, School of Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, and one of the authors of the "Comprehensive Energy Consumption and Flexibility Prediction Report of Data Centers," believes that the coordinated development of intelligent computing power based on data centers and new power systems based on new energy has become an inevitable trend in the future integrated development of the two major fields of information and energy. The comprehensive energy consumption of data centers will be an important issue in the future. At the same time, the coordinated development of computing power, electricity, heat, and carbon needs systematic planning in terms of planning, construction, operation, and market.

"Green computing power is not only the coordinated development of electricity and computing, but also a contemporary issue that the entire industry chain needs to face." Jiang Kairui said that operators such as Qinghai Mobile are integrating green computing power ecosystem partners from all walks of life, leveraging the advantages of the integrated development of electricity and computing to jointly build diversified new microgrid computing centers with richer energy forms, more advanced power grid intelligence levels, and more efficient energy storage utilization, promoting the large-scale local implementation of green microgrid computing centers and exploring an innovative application development path of coordinated electricity and computing.

According to Jin Heping, director of the Renewable Energy Research Center of the Huairou Laboratory and deputy chief engineer of China Three Gorges Corporation, in the future, the computing power industry will definitely use more green electricity to reduce carbon emissions and PUE values and achieve higher energy efficiency. The coordinated technological innovation of "electricity + computing power + heat" can improve the utilization efficiency of renewable energy in the computing power industry and reduce the energy cost of the computing power industry. By exploring green and low-carbon technological paths and models, the "computing power +" green and low-carbon ecosystem will empower various industries and promote the high-quality development of renewable energy.

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