China and America’s AI war isn’t just about compute, it’s about energy — energy subsidies promote homegrown chip push, amid data center energy squeeze

Local Chinese governments have begun issuing attractive power incentives and subsidies to Chinese tech companies, including ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent, according to a new report. Designed to cut energy bills for affected companies, the subsidies are an effort to further curtail the use of foreign chips, such as Nvidia’s powerful AI-capable hardware. The incentives are also intended to bolster the local production of Chinese chips and AI processors.

The past year has seen the U.S. and China tussle…