China is continuing to expand access to AI computing power to its workforce, and has begun using its nationalized data centers to do so. Many of China’s local governments have begun rolling out “computing power voucher” programs, aimed at helping SMEs (small and medium enterprises) access AI training power at heavily subsidized costs. The voucher program has so far been seen in cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Henan, Shandong, Chengdu, Shenzhen, and Ningbo. These cities have begun distributing vouchers for computing power and AI training, allowing SMEs to purchase these computing tasks from local data centers for far below typical costs. Shanghai’s investment leads the rest of China’s cities, reportedly allocating CN¥600 million ($84.1 million / £62.9 million) to computing power vouchers. Shanghai’s vouchers will subsidize up to 80% of AI rental fees for its users. Shanghai has also rolled out CN¥100 million ($14.0 million / £10.5 million) in funding for a comparable data voucher program specifically for AI LLM training.

Full report : China subsidizes AI computing for small domestic companies — ‘computing power vouchers’ spread across multiple Chinese cities.