After working in hotel services in Qingdao, Chen Gang has found a new career closer to home as a data center technician in Ulaanqab, North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region.
Chen returned to Ulaanqab in 2024 when he learned about the city's growing data-center industry. He signed up for a local training course at Runchuang Industry College and later became an operations and maintenance technician at GDS, a publicly traded data center provider.
His story has become commonplace amid Ulaanqab's computing boom. Runchuang Industry College has trained more than 1,000 people for data-center infrastructure operations and maintenance since its establishment in 2022, according to Ao Demu, an instructor at the college.
Luo Dongmei, who has run a restaurant in Bayantal township for 21 years, says the arrival of data-center workers has brought more customers and boosted her business. She and her husband have used the new revenue to open a small guesthouse and hire a local villager to help with food preparation and cleaning.
Ulaanqab's cool climate, abundant wind and solar resources, and high-speed network links to Beijing have helped attract data center operators. For locals, the computing economy is creating new ways to earn a living.
