China's AI Super-Node Computing Power Accelerates Expansion, 2026 Market Size Estimated at Nearly 90 Billion Yuan
Nashnova编辑部
China's smart-compute capacity surged 177% year-on-year to 2,185 EFLOPS in H1 2026, as super-node architecture — clustering thousands of accelerator cards into one compute domain — shifts from proof-of-concept to volume delivery. Guohai Securities estimates the market at ¥88.9 billion in 2026, crossing ¥1 trillion by 2028.
What exactly is a super-node, and why does it matter now?
A super-node links hundreds or thousands of accelerator cards via high-speed interconnects and unified memory pooling into a single compute domain — essentially turning a rack farm into one giant machine.
This means → China's domestically made AI chips still trail global leaders on a per-card basis. The super-node thesis is scale for efficiency: more cards, tighter links, shared memory — closing the gap at the system level rather than the chip level.
In plain terms = if one card can't beat the competition, wire a few thousand together and compete as a single system.
How big could this market get?
Guohai Securities projects super-node market size at ¥88.9 bn in 2026 → ¥415.1 bn in 2027 → ¥1.109 tn in 2028. Super-nodes' share of domestic AI chip shipments is expected to rise from 15% in 2026 to 55% in 2028.
Huatai Securities is more conservative, pegging 2028 at roughly ¥341.4 bn — a threefold gap between the two forecasts.
This reflects an industry still in early ramp: brokerages disagree sharply on penetration speed, and the actual trajectory hinges on whether systems can ship at volume.
Who is building them, and how far along are they?
Sugon scaleX640: 640 accelerator cards in a single rack, with claimed compute density 20× peers. Sugon 8000 is China's first fully domestic 100,000-card AI supercomputing cluster connected to the National Supercomputing Internet.
Huawei Atlas 950 SuperPoD: scales from 64 NPUs per rack to a maximum of 8,192.
Alibaba Pangu AL128 integrates 128 cards; Baidu Tianchi 256 integrates 256. ZTE and Moore Threads have also shipped products.
This means → super-nodes are no longer one vendor's concept rig — at least five or six vendors have entered the delivery phase.
Where is the infrastructure money coming from?
The *Economic Information Daily* cites estimates that compute-network buildout during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period could drive roughly ¥4 trillion in new direct investment.
Project-level examples: GDS (万国数据) committed over ¥30 bn across five years for a high-density data center in Ulanqab; Jinko Power is involved in a 1 GW compute-center project in Zhongwei, Ningxia, with an investment of about ¥24.5 bn.
In the first seven months of 2026, over 150 publicly tendered smart-compute and data-center projects each exceeded ¥100 million in contract value — this reflects capital expenditure moving from plans to actual procurement.
How much are telcos and internet giants spending?
China Mobile's Wuhan smart-compute center has deployed over 700 racks with 2,876 PFLOPS of installed capacity. H1 2026 capex reached ¥61 bn, with compute-network investment up 71% YoY. AI-storage synergies lifted long-sequence token output efficiency by 50%.
China Unicom's Wuzhen center launched Phase 1 at 2,000 PFLOPS; the Wujiang project secured ¥5.1 bn in approved investment. Full-year capex budget is ¥50 bn, of which over ¥17.5 bn (35%) is earmarked for compute.
Tencent Q2 2026 capex hit ¥52.78 bn — up 176% YoY and 65% QoQ. Lenovo's AI-related revenue rose 60% YoY to ¥63.4 bn in the quarter ending June 2026.
Can this market deliver on the forecasts?
Super-nodes currently account for roughly 30%–40% of compute procurement at major internet companies. Broader industry penetration is expected to begin in 2027.
This means → the market is still in an early-adopter phase led by top-tier buyers; the real volume window has not yet opened.
Two make-or-break checkpoints: ① whether leading systems can sustain volume delivery, and ② whether domestic chip interconnect performance can keep up with expanding system scale. In plain terms = can the cards be manufactured fast enough, and can the "roads" between them be built wide enough — that determines whether the trillion-yuan forecast materializes or stays on paper.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.