Compute is being specified as a grid-responsive resource.
A new national-network project covers assessment of data-centre adjustable-load potential, strengthening the compute–energy branch without yet proving commercial deployment.
The role in the system
Storage, power electronics, cooling and grid access.
Compute-energy coordination is promising; the commercial outcome remains to be established.
Companies in this layer
CATL · Zhongheng · Huawei Digital Power · Haier
Names identify research roles, not a claim that every company has a partnership with every other company.
What would strengthen the thesis?
Evidence of energisation, delivered power costs and funded customer contracts.
What would weaken it?
Technical progress that fails to improve usable output or economic returns; delays, costs or commercial friction that prevent the value test being met.
Architecture notes
Energy system
Still an open research gate. We are testing whether storage, grid-forming capability, direct green power and flexible workloads make electricity dynamically coupled to compute rather than a passive input.
Update · compute is being specified as a grid-responsive resource
From power supply to compute–electricity coordination
On 20 September 2026 a National Integrated Computing Power Network project was registered specifically to define technical requirements for evaluating the adjustable-load potential of data centres. Related registered projects include a compute–electricity coordination reference architecture and power/compute resource planning. This materially strengthens the proposition that electricity may become dynamically coupled to workload placement rather than remaining a passive input.
The evidence is architectural, not yet commercial. It does not prove that VNET, GDS or CATL currently earn revenue from dynamic workload/grid coordination, nor that hyperscale AI training can be freely shifted in response to grid signals. Those remain key tests.