Chongqing - Two Chongqing–Xinjiang cooperation initiatives have been named among Chongqing’s Top 10 Reform and Development Practices of 2025, showcasing how cross-regional collaboration and resource sharing are helping advance China’s unified national market.
A converter station in Beibei District, Chongqing, forms a key part of the Hami-Chongqing ±800 kV ultra-high-voltage direct current power transmission project. (Photo/Chongqing Daily)
Known as "Xinjiang Power to Chongqing" and "Xinjiang Computing Power to Chongqing," the projects connect energy-rich and land-abundant Xinjiang with one of western China's largest industrial and technology centers.
Ding Yao, president of the Chongqing Academy of Comprehensive Economic Research, said the projects are not only important for Chongqing's energy and digital development but also serve as landmark examples of the city's integration into China’s unified national market.
The projects form part of a broader effort by Chongqing to draw on resources from across the country. Between 2021 and 2025, the city imported more than 160 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity from other provinces. In 2025 alone, imported power exceeded 10 million kilowatts at peak capacity, accounting for roughly one-third of the city's maximum electricity load.
By April 2026, the Xinjiang-to-Chongqing power transmission project had delivered more than 21 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. Officials said the project now provides more than 18 billion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity annually, equivalent to replacing 5.9 million tonnes of standard coal and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 15 million tonnes each year.
Wang Zuxun, director of Chongqing Municipal Energy Bureau, said the city is planning additional energy cooperation with Xinjiang during China's next five-year development period. A new transmission project linking southern Xinjiang with Sichuan and Chongqing is expected to add 4 million kilowatts of imported electricity capacity. More than 75% of its supporting power generation capacity will come from wind and solar energy.
Chongqing is also pursuing new transmission links with neighboring provinces and exploring future hydropower imports from Tibet, with the goal of increasing its external electricity supply capacity to more than 26 million kilowatts by 2030.
The city's strategy for computing resources follows a similar logic. As one of the eight national computing hubs under China's "East Data, West Computing" initiative- a national program that shifts data processing workloads from densely populated eastern regions to western areas with lower energy costs- Chongqing faces rapidly growing demand for artificial intelligence computing power.
Since 2024, Chongqing and Xinjiang have jointly implemented the "Xinjiang Computing Power to Chongqing" initiative. According to the Chongqing Municipal Development and Reform Commission, major technology companies, including China Mobile and Alibaba Cloud, are building new computing centers in Xinjiang, where abundant renewable energy and lower operating costs support large-scale data processing.
By the end of 2025, a dedicated 100G computing transmission network linking Chongqing and Hami in Xinjiang had been completed, reducing round-trip data transmission latency to 36 milliseconds. More than 10,000 petaFLOPS (P) of computing power had already been introduced through the project.
The benefits are already being felt by the industry. State-owned automakers Changan Automobile and Qingling Motors have shifted energy-intensive tasks such as autonomous driving model training and large-scale road data processing to the Xinjiang computing platform. Officials said this reduced model training cycles from around 30 days to 24 hours while cutting research and development costs by more than 50%.
By 2025, Chongqing had access to more than 30,000P of shared intelligent computing power, including 20,000P from external computing hubs in Xinjiang, Sichuan and Gansu.
Officials expect demand to continue growing as artificial intelligence expands into manufacturing, transportation and other sectors. Chongqing has set a target of increasing its dispatchable intelligent computing capacity to 150,000P by 2030.
The city plans to deepen participation in China's national computing network, expand the Chongqing-Xinjiang computing base, and explore cross-border computing cooperation with Singapore and Southeast Asian countries through existing China-Singapore digital connectivity initiatives.