Chinas cloud market to drive surging energy consumption through 2023

Electricity consumption from Chinas data center industry is projected to surge 66% over the next five years, according to a new study by environmental organization Greenpeace.Why it matters The rapidly growing market is largely driven by data-intensive industries such as cloud computing, an industry that the government has marked for rapid development as it ramps up the countrys artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. China is aiming to close the AI technology gap with the US by 2030.Coal-generated power helped fuel Chinas remarkable economic expansion over the past few decades. However, the power market has made some headway in renewable energy sources like wind and solar, creating opportunities for the countrys booming data center industry to procure clean energy and reduce reliance on fossil fuels. China is on its way to becoming one of the largest cloud markets. No foreign cloud provider is allowed to operate its own data centers in China, which means domestic cloud providers like Alibaba Cloud are major energy consumers.