China has spent billions of dollars building far too many data centers for AI and compute – could it lead to a huge market crash?

• DeepSeek is just one of the many reasons China’s AI growth simply didn’t materialize
• Up to 80% of new data center capacity hasn’t been used according to local sources
• Should this capacity hit the wider market, it could cause a major headache to data center developers

China’s AI infrastructure boom is faltering, as according to a report in MIT Technology Review, the country built hundreds of data centers to support its AI ambitions, but many are now sitting unused.

Billions were invested by both state and private entities in 2023 and 2024, with the expectation that demand for GPU rentals would keep growing, but uptake has in fact dropped off, and as a result many operators are now struggling to survive.