On the steppes of Inner Mongolia, China is raising a new kind of monument — not to ideology, but to computation. As Trump and Xi prepare to meet on the question of AI safety, hundreds of data centres are quietly reshaping remote provinces, driven by Beijing's ambition to weave artificial intelligence into ninety percent of Chinese industry and society by 2030. The construction is swift and deliberate, but the benefits remain unevenly distributed, and the communities displaced to make room for this digital future have yet to see much of it arrive.
China's AI Infrastructure Surge Outpaces US as Trump-Xi Summit Looms
Entire villages have been relocated for data centre construction, though compensation details and numbers are unclear; rural populations face potential land seizure and loss of farming livelihoods.