China's NDRC: To Promote Direct Interconnection and Capacity Expansion of National Computing Hubs During the 15th Five-Year Plan, Reducing Transmission Latency
Alina Collins
China's NDRC said on June 18 it will expand direct connections between national computing hubs and reduce network latency during the 15th Five-Year Plan — the policy focus is shifting from building more capacity to making the network faster and better matched to demand.
How far has China's computing network come?
By end-2025, 145 trunk fiber-optic cables link all eight national computing hubs; network latency from every province to the nearest hub is now under 20 milliseconds.
As of March 2025, China's intelligent-computing capacity reached 1.882 million petaflops — 2.5 times the level a year earlier.
This means → the buildout has reached scale, but the NDRC is pivoting the conversation to quality — the next chapter is about whether the existing network is fast enough and flexible enough, not how much more to build.
Where are the bottlenecks?
NDRC spokesperson Li Chao named three: the computing network and the new-style power grid are misaligned on planning and pricing; integration with the next-generation telecom network is shallow; and monitoring and dispatching of computing resources lacks both the technology and the institutional mechanism.
In plain terms = the computing power is built, but electricity supply, network routing, and system monitoring are still run in separate silos.
What do "hard investment" and "soft infrastructure" each cover?
Hard investment: pilot more "computing-power-plus-electricity" coordination models — the goal is to use electricity to strengthen computing and use computing to drive electricity demand — while expanding direct hub-to-hub links to cut latency further.
Soft infrastructure: strengthen real-time monitoring and market-based dispatching of computing resources; accelerate a nationwide integrated computing network that is "interconnected, accessible, green, and secure."
This means → the hardware side fixes the bottleneck where power cannot keep up with computing; the software side fixes the problem where capacity is built but cannot be flexibly dispatched — both tracks are essential.
What does the "8+10+3" layout mean?
China's computing footprint now follows an "8+10+3" structure: 8 national hubs, 10 national computing clusters, and 3 pilot zones for computing-electricity coordination.
In plain terms = the 8 hubs form the backbone, the 10 clusters are the muscle, and the 3 pilot zones are where authorities are testing how to tie power and computing together.
How does the market read this policy path?
The NDRC stated that market forces will play the decisive role in building the integrated network; government's job is coordination and policy guidance.
Whether direct-link expansion can meaningfully cut latency without significantly raising construction costs will be the key test of whether this policy path works.
This reflects a recognition at the policy level that administrative planning alone cannot deliver the buildout — private capital and enterprises must be brought in — but balancing cost and performance remains the unresolved core question.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.