China News Service, Hohhot, October 24 (Reporter Aolan Cheng Xiaolu) As the largest land port between China and Mongolia, Erenhot used to be more responsible for the cross-border flow of goods and people. Since the establishment of the China (Inner Mongolia) Free Trade Pilot Zone Erenhot Area, computing power has begun to become a new keyword in the industrial layout of this port city.
A few days ago, the reporter followed the interview team to the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to explore the changes in the China (Inner Mongolia) Pilot Free Trade Zone, which has been in operation for about half a year.
"Computing power" is one of the high-frequency words heard by reporters during this trip. Among China's 23 free trade pilot zones, Inner Mongolia is the only free trade pilot zone that clearly assumes the task of building a national hub node for a national integrated computing power network in the "Master Plan" and regards green computing power as a differentiated reform pilot task.
Since the establishment of the China (Inner Mongolia) Free Trade Pilot Zone, two medium-sized computing power facilities have been implemented in the Erenhot area, which is a preliminary exploration to implement the "Master Plan" to "support the construction of edge computing power centers in Manzhouli and Erenhot." The "Overall Plan" clearly states that the construction of the Inner Mongolia hub node of the national integrated computing network will be promoted, and the construction of edge computing centers in Manzhouli and Erenhot will be supported.
"We have plans to go overseas with our computing power." Shi Yuanhui is a member of the Party Committee of the Erenhot Municipal Commerce Bureau of Xilingol League, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and the director of the Comprehensive Security Center of the Erenhot Area of the China (Inner Mongolia) Free Trade Pilot Zone.
The Erenhot Political Bureau has also made an assessment: This is the closest land border port to Beijing and is located in the middle channel of the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor. It has the realistic conditions to transform the port's location advantages into digital trade competitive advantages.
Xilingol League, where Erenhot is located, is also an important clean energy output base planned and constructed by the country. The available wind energy and solar energy resources account for 1/3 and 1/6 of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region respectively. In 2014, it was listed as one of the nine large-scale modern wind power bases in the country.
The focus of Inner Mongolia’s green security hub is actually in the Hohhot area. This is the capital of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and the location of one of the eight hub nodes of the national integrated computing network and one of the top ten data center clusters.
"It is necessary to give full play to the superimposed advantages of the Inner Mongolia hub node of the national integrated computing power network and the Hohhot area." Xu Donglai, deputy director of the Political Bureau of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, said that as of the end of August, a total of 67 data center projects of various types had been launched in the free trade pilot zone, with 600,000 standard racks built and a total investment of 44.6 billion yuan completed; the total computing power scale reached 150,000P (including 146,000P for smart computing). Hohhot City has started construction of 14 ultra-large data center projects, including China Unicom's Northwest Base, Huawei Cloud, and Volcano Engine Phase I. Investments of 7.138 billion yuan have been completed since 2026.
The reporter had a clear feeling after visiting many companies and parks. In the past, computing power was viewed more as the infrastructure that supports the operation of the digital industry; when data circulation, artificial intelligence models, and digital services began to be planned together, computing power also began to become an ability that can participate in a wider range of resource allocation.
In Inner Mongolia, more and more digital industry layouts are unfolding. At present, the Inner Mongolia Data Trading Center has signed mutual recognition agreements with big data trading institutions in Beijing, Tianjin, Guangzhou and other places, and has established a joint innovation center with the Guangzhou Data Exchange to participate in work related to mutual recognition and interoperability of data trading venues across the country. At the same time, Inner Mongolia has also jointly released data product price service guidelines with data vendors to explore the establishment of a multi-dimensional data product pricing model.
In August 2026, the Inner Mongolia Political Bureau, Development and Reform Commission, Department of Finance, Market Supervision and Administration, Department of Science and Technology, and Energy Bureau also jointly issued "Several Measures for the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to Promote the High-Quality Development of the Ci Yuan Economy", proposing to support enterprises in exploring the overseas services of Ci Yuan in the Inner Mongolia Free Trade Pilot Zone, actively striving for pilot work related to cross-border circulation of data, and exporting computing power, models, and Ci Yuan services.
The construction of a public service platform for digital service export has also been launched. In the future, a three-level linkage mechanism will be established between the autonomous region, Hohhot City and the Free Trade Pilot Zone. At present, Hohhot has completed the proposal, feasibility study report and recruitment and procurement docking work for the digital service export public service platform project.
"During the construction of the free trade pilot zone, Inner Mongolia has made some differentiated explorations, such as the field of green hubs." Guo Zhouming, deputy director of the Inner Mongolia Department of Commerce and deputy director of the China (Inner Mongolia) Pilot Free Trade Zone Leading Group Office, said that Inner Mongolia's current thinking is very clear, "Seek truth from facts, adapt to local conditions, do what we can, and do what the country has given Inner Mongolia."
