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CHINA AI INFRASTRUCTURE · LIVING SYSTEMS RESEARCH

Companies & relationships

Explore company roles, thesis questions and the evidence behind relationships.

COMPANY THESIS

VNET

Full thesis: high-density delivery, CATL ecosystem, Huawei networking, move-ins, funding and scenario analysis.

Explore →COMPANY THESIS

Kingsoft Cloud (KC)

Full thesis: Huawei deployment evidence, AIOS/StarFlow, Xiaomi demand, managed compute, funding and valuation scenarios.

Explore →COMPANY THESIS

GDS

Role, thesis question and next evidence test.

Explore →AIDC COMPARATIVE STUDY

VNET vs GDS

Side-by-side demand, delivery, utilisation, economics, financing and infrastructure integration.

Compare →COMPANY THESIS

Huawei

Role, thesis question and next evidence test.

Explore →COMPANY THESIS

CATL

Role, thesis question and next evidence test.

Explore →COMPANY THESIS

Alibaba

Role, thesis question and next evidence test.

Explore →COMPANY THESIS

ByteDance

Role, thesis question and next evidence test.

Explore →
05 • ECOSYSTEM MAP

One system. Three lenses. Relationships are organised by the value-chain interface they explain.

The ecosystem map is a visual evidence layer beneath the value-chain spine. Start with the system interface, then inspect the companies that provide evidence for it. Solid edges are evidenced relationships; dashed edges are research gaps or architectural convergence and are never promoted into partnerships.

CONTROL-PLANE LENS

Who can see, schedule and optimise which resources?

This lens separates internal resource management from the more valuable but harder problem of cross-provider orchestration.

KCworkload + heterogeneous compute scheduling
Huaweicompute + memory + runtime + cloud scheduling
ByteDanceworkload + GPU scheduling + compiler/inference
Alibabacloud + compute + storage + model control
VNETAIDC O&M + facility/energy management
White space: a neutral control layer capable of discovering and routing workloads across different operators, accelerator architectures, regions and eventually energy conditions. MIIT policy explicitly points toward parts of this market structure; commercial capture remains open.

Explore the full software & management stack →

CLICK A COMPANY TO ISOLATE ITS ECOSYSTEM • CLICK A LINE TO INSPECT THE RELATIONSHIP BYTEDANCEdemand → infrastructure VNETAIDC integrator HUAWEIarchitecture integrator ALIBABAdemand → silicon KCcontrol plane CATLenergy system XIAOMIanchor demand HAIERagents + cooling GDSphysical scale YMTCstorage hierarchy DYXNETnetwork CHINA MOBILEnetwork + workload CAMBRICONaccelerator ZHONGHENGpower electronics MOORE THREADSaccelerator JD CLOUDcloud / demand
China AI Infrastructure · chinaaiinfra.netlify.app · See accompanying evidence and review date.
technical / operatingcapital / strategichistoricalconvergence onlyevidenced ecosystem / customer overlapresearch gap
This is the relationship graph. It is generated from company interactions rather than a generic supply chain. Select a node to isolate its first-order ecosystem. Select an edge to inspect the relationship directly. The Relationships lens is the complete interaction register and gateway to drill-down pages.

How the machine fits together

AI DEMANDmodels • agents • industry CONTROL PLANEcloud • MaaS • runtimescheduler • placement COMPUTEheterogeneous pools MEMORY / STORAGEHBM → DDR → SSD INTERCONNECTscale-up • scale-out AIDCusable AI MW ENERGYgrid • BESS • power
China AI Infrastructure · chinaaiinfra.netlify.app · See accompanying evidence and review date.

Ecosystem shapes emerging from the evidence

New central archetype — ByteDance: demand-to-infrastructure hyperscaler. Douyin, Doubao, Seed, Coze and Volcano Engine create token demand that pulls ByteDance downward into schedulers, heterogeneous accelerators, proprietary network protocols, storage, custom CPUs and hyperscale power infrastructure. OPEN BYTE DANCE DEEP DIVE →
SAME NATIONAL SYSTEM • DIFFERENT WAYS OF CAPTURING VALUEHUAWEI • ARCHITECTURE INTEGRATORcompute → software → fabric → storage → powerALIBABA • DEMAND-TO-SILICONmodels → cloud → scheduler → silicon → AIDCVNET / GDS • PHYSICAL INTEGRATIONcustomers → network → AIDC → geography → powerKC • CONTROL-PLANE AGGREGATORdemand → MaaS → orchestration → compute poolsCATL • ENERGY-SYSTEM INTEGRATORBESS → power electronics → AIDC → compute-energy
China AI Infrastructure · chinaaiinfra.netlify.app · See accompanying evidence and review date.
ByteDance
Demand-to-infrastructure hyperscaler
VNET
Infrastructure ecosystem integrator
Huawei
Architecture integrator
CATL
Energy-system integrator
Kingsoft Cloud
Control plane + anchored demand
Alibaba
Demand-to-silicon platform
GDS
Physical-scale integrator
YMTC
Data-hierarchy enabler
China telecoms
National compute fabric
Domestic accelerators
Compute islands + software ecosystems

Select a company.

Its internal stack, external ecosystem, confirmed edges, open questions and available relationship deep dives will appear here.

FROM
TO
RELATIONSHIP
LAYER
STATUS
DRILL DOWN
GDS
Hebei integrated compute platform
Participated in launch of provincial compute monitoring/scheduling platform; GDS Langfang projects launched alongside it
Geography / orchestration / AIDC
Confirmed participation
ByteDance
Huawei
Largest disclosed domestic accelerator-supplier relationship
Compute / inference
Reported / corroborated
ByteDance
Cambricon
Principal domestic accelerator supplier
Compute / inference
Reported / corroborated
ByteDance
Iluvatar CoreX
2026 GPU allocation expanded to 100,000 units amid HBM constraint
Compute / inference
Reported
ByteDance
Qualcomm
Reported AI-ASIC agreement for data centres and agent workloads
Compute / custom silicon
Reported
ByteDance
Arm
Customer of Arm AI data-centre CPUs; custom Arm/RISC-V CPUs in development
CPU / inference
Confirmed + reported
Volcano Engine
DYXnet / VNET
Cloud + AI + security + network cooperation
Cloud / network
Confirmed
ByteDance / Volcano Engine
VNET
Evidenced ecosystem/customer overlap via VNET-owned DYXnet; no disclosed attribution of VNET wholesale MW to ByteDance
Demand / cloud / network / AIDC
Evidenced overlap
ByteDance / Volcano Engine
China Energy Engineering Anhui Institute
220kV substation EPC for Wuhu and Wuwei compute campuses
AIDC / power
Confirmed
ByteDance
Inner Mongolia
Discussions around compute monitoring, trading and turning compute into token output
Geography / policy / compute market
Emerging
VNET
CATL
Strategic + capital + compute-energy
Energy / AIDC
Confirmed
VNET
Huawei / DYXnet
AI-native WAN; cross-node training deployment
Network / geography
Confirmed
VNET
Haier
Agents + cooling + green DC collaboration
Demand / AIDC
Confirmed
Kingsoft Cloud
Xiaomi
Cloud demand + AI/EV/AIoT + governance connectivity
Demand / cloud
Confirmed
CATL
Zhongheng
Strategic-investment framework + power electronics + compute infrastructure
Energy / conversion
In progress / framework
Huawei
China Mobile
Production inference + context/storage/network tests
Compute / storage / network
Confirmed
Evidence
Kingsoft Cloud
Cambricon
Accelerator support documented historically/product-level
Compute / control
Historical
Evidence
Kingsoft Cloud
Huawei Ascend
Zhujiang Hospital: Huawei hardware + KC AIOS
Compute / control
Deployment-specific
Huawei
YMTC
KV/context storage architectural convergence; no commercial edge established
Memory / storage
Convergence
Evidence
Alibaba
VNET
Historical data-centre customer relationship
AIDC
Historical
Evidence
Alibaba Cloud
GDS
Physical Express Connect access-point presence
Network / AIDC
Confirmed scope
Evidence
Moore Threads
JD Cloud
Domestic accelerator cluster cooperation
Compute / cloud
Announced
Evidence
Register rule: this is the master interaction register, not a highlights matrix. Relationships can carry several dimensions simultaneously. Co-participation, adjacency and architectural similarity remain distinct from commercial relationships.

Research deep dives

Explore the company relationships and infrastructure capabilities behind the thesis.

VNET–CATL →VNET–Huawei networking →VNET–Haier →Kingsoft Cloud–Xiaomi →CATL ecosystem →CATL–Zhongheng →ByteDance infrastructure →National orchestration & control plane →