Source: Bloomberg (paywall)
China's infrastructure play addresses a concrete constraint: 9% of renewable generation was curtailed in 2026, representing stranded energy and opportunity cost. By engineering massive grid capacity and transmission to consume that surplus power for data centers and chip fabrication, Beijing treats renewable waste as tradeable infrastructure advantage—locking in cheaper AI training compute than rivals dependent on grid parity pricing or fossil fuel hedging. This is capital arbitrage disguised as decarbonization, with geopolitical stakes for AI leadership embedded in energy routing decisions through 2049.