Digital technology and systematic governance pave the way for high-quality green development

The green transition is no longer a matter of choice but a defining imperative for high-quality development in China. The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) for national economic and social development, approved during the 2026 National People’s Congress, sets a binding target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 17 percent, while raising the share of the core digital economy industries in GDP to 12.5 percent.

In terms of industrial development, the outline introduces a new strategic direction centered on “intelligent and green development, and integrated innovation of industries and technologies”. Compared with the earlier five-year plan, which emphasized “upgrading of industry and value chains, in addition to intelligent and green development”, the shift toward integrated approaches signals the entry into a new stage of development that has systemic integration as its core feature, as China accelerates its green and low-carbon transition to form a new low-carbon innovation paradigm driven by artificial intelligence technologies.

The integrated innovation of industries and technologies in the 15th Five-Year Plan period can be found in the deep coupling of electricity and computing power. With the rapid advancement of AI technologies, demand for clean computing power is surging.

According to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, electricity consumption by computing centers in China reached 150 billion kilowatt-hours in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 15.4 percent, with a projection to reach above 400 billion kWh by 2030 in the medium to high growth scenario. Against this backdrop, the 15th Five-Year Plan explicitly calls for the coordinated deployment of green electricity and computing power, while the 2026 Government Work Report has, for the first time, included “computing-power and electricity synergy” as part of the new infrastructure initiative.

Computing power and electricity synergy refers to the systemic integration of computing infrastructure with the electricity power system through digital technologies, intelligent algorithms, and information networks. On the one hand, models such as direct green power supply and integrated source-grid-load-storage systems help tap into the abundant clean energy in the western part of China, effectively reducing energy costs. On the other hand, some computing tasks are flexible, and can be interrupted and migrated by intelligent scheduling. This approach shifts the increased consumption of electricity to phases with lower electricity costs or lower network utilization through peak load shifting. It substantially transforms data centers from passive electricity consumers into active regulation units, thereby improving the utilization of renewable energy. This model addresses the curtailment of renewable energy and meets the growing green energy demand of computing power, achieving a mutually reinforcing balance between the environmental value of green electricity and the economic value of computing power.

Accurate carbon emissions accounting driven by precise data is the foundational pillar of carbon governance. The effectiveness of carbon reduction efforts depends critically on the transparency and verifiability of carbon accounting systems. China is accelerating the development of a unified national factor database of greenhouse gas emissions, while building an integrated “space-air-ground” monitoring network using satellite remote sensing, drones and ground sensors to ensure that carbon emissions and carbon sinks can be accurately measured and effectively managed.

Progress is also being made in tracing carbon emissions from electricity consumption. By establishing a provincial-level, time-of-use and location-specific factor database of electricity carbon emissions, companies can trace the sources and destinations of their carbon emissions. This technical pathway is expected to upgrade green development evaluation from traditional annual average indicators to higher-frequency, more granular metrics, providing scientific support for precise carbon reduction.

This data-driven foundation enables a broader transformation: moving beyond isolated improvements to achieve intelligent, systemic integration. The most compelling manifestation of this shift is occurring within the industrial sector, particularly in the realm of energy-saving equipment.

In March 2026, four central government departments, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, rolled out a three-year action plan to accelerate the high-quality development of energy-saving equipment. The core thrust of the plan is to shift from optimizing equipment-level energy efficiency to achieving energy conservation. This policy orientation reflects three significant shifts: Technological innovation extends from equipment efficiency to the full chain, and from materials to processes; operating system coordination upgrades from stand-alone operation to wide-range high efficiency and precise matching; and digital empowerment advances from passive response to active optimization, using AI to enable cluster-level intelligent scheduling of energy-consuming units.

This direction is propelling China’s energy-saving equipment industry from a single focus on individual equipment efficiency to a new stage characterized by system integration, intelligent drive and cross-sectoral convergence. It signifies a transformation in value creation from equipment sales to system services and a shift in technical pathways from local optimization to global optimization.

The new paradigm for China’s green and low-carbon development, with computing-power-electricity synergy as a key pathway, data-driven carbon governance as a foundational pillar, and system-level intelligent integration as its technological signature, is accelerating a profound shift from granular, isolated optimization to system-wide integration innovation. This paradigm represents not only a strategic response to intensifying global green competition, but also a distinctive contribution of Chinese wisdom to global decarbonization efforts.

The author is the vice-director of the Center for Science, Technology and Education Policy at Tsinghua University and an associate professor at the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University.

The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

Contact the editor at editor@chinawatch.cn.