The Secret Rise of China’s AI Desert Empire
Beijing is building a small city of data centers in remotest Xinjiang. In this mini-documentary, we reveal its plan to use thousands of export-banned US chips.
Illustration: Brandon Smith
There are approximately three dozen data centers spread across China’s western deserts that may one day have at their heart a cutting-edge processor made by Nvidia—the kind they’re not supposed to have.
The US government has been trying mightily to keep the California-based chipmaker’s most advanced technology out of Beijing’s hands. But a Bloomberg investigation has revealed that data center operators in remotest Xinjiang have other ideas. In this Bloomberg Originals mini-documentary, we uncover how Chinese firms aim to thrust their country to the front of the artificial intelligence arms race—and use American technology to do it.