❯ SemiAnalysis estimates China has more than 24 GW of delivered data center capacity, with ByteDance alone taking about a fifth

Counted across a thousand sitesResearch firm SemiAnalysis estimated in its China Datacenter Model, published September 25, that China has more than 24 GW of delivered data center capacity. According to FourWeekMBA, the figure comes from tracking more than 1,000 facilities across over 60 operators. The Financial Times cited the data on October 8. A gigawatt is a unit of power, used in the industry to gauge how much computing equipment a data center can run.

Another 50 GW in the queueBeyond the 24 GW, the model separately counts about 20 GW of dated pipeline and about 30 GW of announced projects. The same report puts US capacity at 56 GW as of the end of 2026, Asia-Pacific excluding China at about 15 GW, and Europe, the Middle East and Africa at about 14 GW combined. SemiAnalysis also notes that published estimates of China’s capacity differ by as much as 15x.

ByteDance is the biggest tenantUnder the model, ByteDance occupies roughly a fifth of the country’s delivered capacity and rents nearly all of it. The report says combined capital expenditure at Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu reached $20 billion in the second quarter, more than doubling year on year; with ByteDance included, the four are on a trajectory to $100 billion for the year.

Vacancy and shortage at onceThe report describes two markets: older retail racks around tier-one cities run at 30% to 50% utilization and often cannot support AI power densities, while new wholesale capacity for AI is being built elsewhere and filled quickly. For operators, old racks may not catch this demand; the orders go to those who can secure power and land and deliver a new 100 MW facility in under a year.

▮ SIGNALComparing compute now means counting powered buildings and not just chips, but building data is harder to gather, and a 15x spread between estimates is itself a piece of information.