Jul 31, 2026 | Posted by Abdul-Rahman Oladimeji
Chinese AI developer DeepSeek is reportedly planning to build a 1GW data center in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, according to a Bloomberg report. The facility is expected to be located in the city of Ulanqab, in the south-central part of the region. People familiar with the project told Bloomberg that DeepSeek aims to have the data center partially operational by the end of 2027 or early 2028.
DeepSeek rose to prominence in early 2025 after the release of its open-source large language model (LLM), which rattled US markets by demonstrating performance comparable to leading AI models from US companies despite reportedly being trained using a fraction of the computing resources. The company is also reportedly developing its own AI chip to power future generations of its models.
Inner Mongolia is one of the regions included in China's Eastern Data, Western Compute initiative, which promotes large-scale computing infrastructure in the country's western regions. Meanwhile, Chinese AI firm Z.ai is reportedly operating part of a 1GW data center using domestically made AI chips, although the company has not disclosed the facility's location, capacity, or chip supplier.
