China's 'potato capital' cultivates new crop of data centres as AI boom takes root

On the windswept plains of China's Inner Mongolia, potato farms are making way for sprawling AI data centres. CNA visited Ulanqab, where the boom is transforming livelihoods and raising questions about water sustainability in a drought-prone region.

Construction workers at a data centre project under development in Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia, as the city expands its AI computing infrastructure. (Photo: CNA/Hu Chushi) New: You can now listen to articles. This audio is generated by an AI tool.

Lee Gim Siong 08 Nov 2026 06:00AM Bookmark Bookmark Share WhatsApp Telegram Facebook Twitter Email LinkedIn Set CNA as your preferred source on Google Add CNA as a trusted source to help Google better understand and surface our content in search results. Read a summary of this article on FAST. Get bite-sized news via a newcards interface. Give it a try. Click here to return to FAST Tap here to return to FAST FAST ULANQAB, Inner Mongolia: For more than four decades, Zhang Zhiyong has made a living growing potatoes on the dry, windswept plains of northern China, as his family has long done.

"It's all we've known," he told CNA, standing beside a pickup loaded with his latest harvest.

But these days, the 64-year-old farmer has considerably less land to tend to - and more money in his pocket.

His farmland is making way for data centres, part of a construction boom sweeping Ulanqab, a city in the country’s Inner Mongolia region.

CNA Games Guess Word Crack the word, one row at a time Buzzword Create words using the given letters Mini Sudoku Tiny puzzle, mighty brain teaser Mini Crossword Small grid, big challenge Word Search Spot as many words as you can Show More Show Less Dubbed China’s “potato capital”, Ulanqab is now emerging as a major hub for the computing power driving the country’s artificial intelligence (AI) ambitions.

For Zhang, the transformation began about two years ago, when developers began approaching residents of his village, Shengjiaying, for land to build data centres.

The farming village, on the outskirts of Ulanqab's main urban district of Jining, sits close to a growing cluster of data-centre construction projects.

Zhang said he received more than 200,000 yuan (US$30,000) in compensation for giving up about 0.7ha of his more than 1.3ha of farmland for development.

Today, he grows potatoes on just one mu of land - a Chinese unit of area equivalent to about 670 sq m - renting out most of his remaining farmland to other farmers.

Gesturing towards the modest harvest in his pickup, Zhang said the workload was a far cry from his earlier farming days.