China Turns to Hollow-Core Fibre to Speed Up AI Data

Beijing (GNP): China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region is testing hollow-core fibre to ease the strain that artificial intelligence (AI) is putting on computing infrastructure. Ningxia is one of the country’s eight national computing hubs, and demand for computing power there has grown far faster than expected.

The region has already completed, in just one year, all the construction originally planned for the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030). Under the latest plan, 60 new data centres are set to be built, tripling the scale of the original target.

That growth brings a new problem. As more companies move into data centres, network congestion can delay data transmission and raise the time and cost of AI model training.

The problem is sharpest in Zhongwei, a key computing cluster in Ningxia more than 1,000 kilometres from major demand centres in eastern China. Even on high-grade fibre connections, data takes around 20 milliseconds to travel between Zhongwei and the eastern hubs, which is too slow for latency-sensitive AI applications.

Engineers are now turning to hollow-core fibre to remove that bottleneck. The fibre is less than 0.4 millimetres in diameter. Magnified 1,000 times, its hollow interior shows 20 tiny glass cylinders embedded in the walls, which form a high-speed pathway for light signals.

Compared with conventional solid-core fibre, hollow-core fibre can reduce both transmission loss and latency by more than 30 per cent. It offers ultra-low latency, low loss and high bandwidth for more efficient AI model training. The technology has already been deployed between data centres 30 kilometres apart, which paves the way for high-speed transmission over longer distances.

The upgraded network also makes computing resources easier to reach. A local computing platform pools scattered and idle resources, so customers can access available computing power more flexibly.

Faster networks, however, do not solve the region’s other constraint, which is electricity. Modular steel-frame construction means a data centre that once took 18 months to two years can now be delivered in as little as four and a half to five months. A new substation can still take around 18 months from approval to completion.

To close that gap, Ningxia is bringing grid construction forward. Four substations originally scheduled to start in 2028 and 2029 will now begin in 2027.

The region has also introduced a tiered power supply model, because new data centres often run below full capacity in their early stages. Under this model, a data centre first receives power at a lower voltage and moves to a higher-voltage supply as its demand grows.

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Ningxia is also testing new ways to match computing demand with renewable power. A recently completed green-power direct-supply project uses a system that forecasts computing workloads and electricity demand. It then schedules power generation and energy storage according to changes in wind and solar output. Renewable energy now accounts for 87.6 per cent of electricity consumption at Ningxia’s data centres, 7.6 percentage points above the national target.

Building more fibre, substations and data centres is not enough on its own. It also requires closer cooperation between sectors and government departments. Ningxia is exploring coordination mechanisms that bring the computing, communications and power sectors together, so that departments and businesses can align their plans and resources as demand grows.

As one of China’s eight national computing hubs, Ningxia is accelerating the integrated development of these three networks. Its aim is a green, secure and reliable computing hub that serves users across the country.

Zhou Chongyang, a computing network planning expert at China Mobile’s Ningxia branch, said, “Under the latest plan, 60 new data centres will be built, tripling the original plan.”