China holds about 80 percent of the world's patents for underwater data centers, SCMP reports, citing data published in the Journal of Maritime Information Technology and Applications.
China's dominance in this field began in 2021, when it overtook the previous leaders - the United States, Norway and Canada.
This gives it a significant advantage in technology that uses seawater as a natural coolant for energy-hungry servers.
Analysts attribute China's lead to strengths in engineering technologies such as modular construction and on-site maintenance. According to experts, China's underwater sector will gradually expand from coastal areas to deep sea areas and transform from isolated computing facilities into nodes for the development of the maritime economy. The world is now racing to build data centers, with global capital spending on data center infrastructure set to exceed $1 trillion in 2026 as the deployment of artificial intelligence technologies accelerates.