Alibaba Cloud Zhangbei data center

The story

Zhangbei County lies about 200 km northwest of Beijing, where the average temperature is about 2.6 °C and wind and solar power are plentiful. Alibaba launched its first two self-built data centres there in 2016, one at Miaotan and one at Xiaoertai, where Shanghai AtHub put up the buildings and Alibaba runs the servers. More campuses followed. Fresh outside air is blown through 'wind walls' into the halls on more than 300 days a year, and some servers sit submerged in coolant. State media described the base as key cloud infrastructure for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. It also exports heat: one data centre supplied 13,680 GJ to the county in the 2024-25 heating season.

Notable

• Alibaba said the two Zhangbei centres launched in 2016 were the first it had designed and built exclusively for its own business.
• Outside air enters the halls through 'wind walls' on more than 300 days a year, and some servers sit immersed in insulating coolant.
• State media reported annual PUE below 1.2 (as low as 1.09) and over 50% renewable power, with about 450 GWh bought from wind farms by May 2021.
• In the 2024-25 heating season one Alibaba Cloud data centre supplied 13,680 GJ of heat to Zhangbei County, per Alibaba's ESG report.
• In 2021 Science and Technology Daily described the base as designed for up to one million servers, with total investment above 20 billion yuan.

Expansions

• 2016: first two self-built data centres launched (Miaotan and Xiaoertai)
• 2017: three more campuses under construction at Miaotan, Xiaoertai and Zhongdu grassland, each sized for about 100,000 servers
• 2021: five campuses reported operating and two more (Miaotan North, Chahar) under construction