On August 16, Xiechang Data Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xiechang Data") announced that the company plans to purchase servers from multiple suppliers with a total procurement amount expected not to exceed 12 billion yuan. These servers will be used to provide computing power rental services to customers. This marks another procurement deal exceeding 10 billion yuan in the computing power rental sector this year.
"Upon completion of this transaction, it will strongly promote the development of the company's main business while providing necessary element support for subsequent sustainable development, playing a significant role in promoting the company's market expansion," a representative from Xiechang Data stated.
"Computing power rental, as an emerging business model, allows enterprises to obtain required computing power through leasing, freeing them from the burden of building expensive computing infrastructure themselves, while enabling flexible adjustment of computing power scale based on business volume," said Yao Ningbo, Managing Director of Kailand Capital. In the current era of AI prosperity, this model has opened an efficient, low-cost channel for small and medium enterprises to access computing power.
**Computing Power Rental Takes Off**
National policies continue to "fuel" the computing power rental industry. As early as 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission and three other departments issued the "Implementation Plan for National Integrated Big Data Center Collaborative Innovation System Computing Power Hub," launching the "East Data, West Computing" project to lay the foundation for building a national computing power network system. In January this year, the General Office of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Notice on Carrying Out Special Actions for SME Overseas Services," explicitly encouraging internet platforms and new media to leverage their brand, market, channel, technology, and computing power advantages to help SMEs explore overseas markets and expand brand influence. Local governments have also intensively launched computing power voucher subsidies. Policy tailwinds are driving the computing power rental industry into a golden period of development.
The computing power rental sector, now riding the wave, has quickly attracted numerous giants and vertical enterprises, including Alibaba Group Holding Limited and Yunse Intelligent Connection Co., Ltd. Among them, some choose to build their own data centers and computing power clusters, controlling core resources through heavy asset investment; others enter the market quickly through hardware agency and light asset operations; still others choose to meet specific industry needs through computing power cluster hosting and proxy operations, deep cooperation with chip/cloud vendors, and focus on vertical scenario customization services.
Order quantities and fulfillment progress are also "in full swing." In August this year, Jinkai New Energy Co., Ltd. announced that its subsidiary Jinkai Xinjiang Yiwu New Energy Power Generation Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jinkai Yiwu") signed relevant contracts with Wuwen Xinqiong (Beijing) Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Wuwen Xinqiong") in January, with Jinkai Yiwu providing intelligent computing power and supporting resources to Wuwen Xinqiong. The total contract rental amount is 69.12 million yuan, with a service period of 12 months. As of now, Jinkai Yiwu has successfully completed the deployment and performance testing of high-performance computing power server clusters and completed the overall delivery of the first-phase computing power cluster, entering the scheduled operational service phase.
In July, Zhejiang Haikong Nanke Huatie Data Intelligence Technology Co., Ltd. announced through its official WeChat public account that the company has formally signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Anhui Haima Cloud Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Haima Cloud"), providing high-quality, stable computing power resource services for Haima Cloud. According to the agreement, based on its global business expansion needs, Haima Cloud will lease large-scale GPU computing power resources from Hainan Huatie, with total rental scale reaching 1 billion yuan.
According to reports, the aforementioned 12 billion yuan is not Xiechang Data's first major investment in computing power rental business. As early as March this year, Xiechang Data planned to purchase servers from suppliers for 3 billion yuan for computing power rental services. In May, the company doubled down again, planning to purchase servers for no more than 4 billion yuan, continuing to layout computing power rental business. Within just a few months, investments exceeding 8 billion yuan have made Xiechang Data one of the most active computing power server "buyers" this year.
With the widespread application of artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing and other technologies, the computing power rental market continues to heat up. Wind data shows that the IDC (computing power rental) index has risen 35.44% year-to-date. China Research and Intelligence forecasts that China's computing power rental market size is expected to exceed 100 billion yuan by 2025, and by 2026, the domestic computing power rental potential revenue scale is expected to reach 260 billion yuan, with subsequent high-speed growth of more than 20% annually.
**Related Companies Show Strong First-Half Performance**
As the computing power rental industry enters the order fulfillment period, multiple listed computing power rental companies have reported positive half-year performance for 2025. Among the 4 companies in Wind's "computing power rental" sector that have disclosed semi-annual reports, all achieved year-over-year growth in net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies. Additionally, leading enterprises such as Hongbo Co., Ltd. and Guangdong Chaoxun Communication Technology Co., Ltd. have also reported positive performance forecasts.
Specifically, Sugon Information Industry Co., Ltd. achieved net profit of 731 million yuan in the first half of 2025, up 29.89% year-over-year. The company has built a national integrated computing power service platform, with its liquid cooling technology being indispensable key technology for data center construction.
Hongbo's semi-annual performance forecast shows that the company's first-half net profit is expected to turn from loss to profit. The positive performance is attributed to the completion of acceptance for computing power projects by the company's wholly-owned subsidiary Beijing Yingbo Data Technology Co., Ltd. during the reporting period. This subsidiary has jointly established an intelligent computing center with NVIDIA and others, providing computing power rental services.
Looking ahead, Yao Ningbo believes that from a policy perspective, local support policies continue to increase, creating a favorable environment for the development of the computing power rental industry. From a technical perspective, improvements in chip technology, cloud computing and edge computing innovations will make computing power rental services more efficient and stable, and the industry is expected to continue its high prosperity development trend in the future.
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