Alibaba runs an operating data center in Zhangbei County, near Zhangjiakou in China's Hebei province, that the research group Epoch AI estimates has grown to about 169 megawatts of power. Epoch AI, which studies satellite images of the site, says new cooling equipment was added to six of its buildings between 2024 and early 2026, roughly doubling its estimated power use from 85 to 169 megawatts.
The site is part of China's "Eastern Data Western Compute" program, launched in 2021, which favors Zhangbei County for its cheap wind and solar power. Alibaba Cloud opened the center in 2022 alongside a twin site in Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia, to run its Feitian computing platform for tasks such as training self-driving car software.
Epoch AI's satellite images show chillers being installed on the first three buildings starting in July 2024 and a large substation linked to the power grid by September 2025, with the last three buildings finished by early 2026. Epoch AI puts the site's cost at about $6.4 billion and estimates it holds computing power equal to roughly 32,000 Nvidia H100 chips, likely running on Nvidia H20 processors sold to the Chinese market.
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