Central enterprises invest hundreds of billions in Xinjiang to strengthen the "dual insurance" of energy security

170 billion yuan.

This amount of investment is not a small figure anywhere. But if you look at it at this particular point in time, it’s far more than an economic transaction.

On March 13, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps held a symposium in Beijing with the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council on the 2026 central government–owned enterprises’ efforts to promote Xingjiang through industries.

2026 central government–owned enterprises’ symposium on promoting Xingjiang through industries. Photo source: Xinjiang Daily

Before the symposium, the autonomous region and the Corps signed cooperation agreements with 18 central government–owned enterprises, covering 92 projects in fields such as energy, minerals, computing power, and equipment manufacturing. The investment in the region is expected to be about 170 billion yuan.

The timing of this symposium is worth pondering.

At this moment, the Middle East is in the most sensitive period in recent years. Dark clouds hang over the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s energy markets’ hearts are suspended in midair, and international oil prices are surging straight toward $120.

Against this backdrop, central government–owned enterprises are throwing money at Xinjiang on a large scale.

Is this a coincidence?

China is the world’s largest importer of crude oil, and a substantial portion of it has to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Once this sea lane is disrupted, it will inevitably have a significant impact on domestic energy supply.

And Xinjiang, happens to be the key to solving this hard problem.

Xinjiang’s solar energy technology has the largest developable potential in the country, while its wind energy resources rank second nationwide. According to a report by Xinjiang Daily, during the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, Xinjiang has built six new energy bases with installed capacity of ten million kilowatts each, bringing total new energy capacity to 169 million kilowatts, accounting for 64% of the total installed power capacity in all of Xinjiang. Electricity exports are projected to grow at an average annual rate of 6%, and the share of “green electricity” exceeds 30%.

What oil can do, Xinjiang’s coal can also do. Coal is the “mother of chemical raw materials.” According to local media reports, in recent years, Xinjiang’s coal-to-chemicals industry has developed rapidly, with coal being processed into dozens of chemical products and new materials such as natural gas, fertilizers, methanol, and olefins.

According to incomplete statistics, Xinjiang plans to build and is building coal-to-chemicals projects with a total investment scale exceeding 5,000 billion yuan. In 2024, Xinjiang’s output of raw coal reached 541 million tons, with its growth rate ranking first for four consecutive years among China’s major coal-producing provinces.

These 170 billion yuan from central government–owned enterprises will be directed to energy, minerals, computing power, equipment manufacturing, and more. Among them, energy is the top priority. In this cooperation, three major energy central government–owned enterprises—State Power Investment Corporation, China Huaneng Group, and China Huadian Group—signed formal cooperation documents on site. The level and scale of cooperation are further enhanced.

Public information shows that in Xinjiang, clean energy accounts for more than 90% of State Power Investment’s installed power capacity. For China Huadian, the share of clean energy installed capacity in Xinjiang is nearly 60%, up 33 percentage points compared with the end of the “13th Five-Year Plan.”

From a deeper perspective, the energy central government–owned enterprises’ investment in Xinjiang is not simply about expanding production capacity, but about providing the country with a “double insurance” for energy security.

For example, China Huadian has said that the two sides will further increase cooperation in building national energy resource strategic support bases, developing and utilizing clean energy, and developing strategic emerging industries, among other areas—accelerating the construction of a new energy system and a new power system.

If you only focus on energy, you might miss another key signal: investment in computing power.

“Power–computing coordination” was written into the Government Work Report for the first time this year, clearly identifying it as a new type of infrastructure project. Xinjiang has already been actively laying out plans. The Tancheng Green Carbon Smart Computing Industrial Park has already settled 22 computing power enterprises, with a planned total computing power scale of 75,000 P. Within the Hami (Yihe) Computing Power Innovation Demonstration Zone, the Tianshan Zhigu advanced computing cluster has a planned computing power scale exceeding 60,000 P.

Computing power is a high-energy-consumption industry, but Xinjiang has the cheapest green electricity nationwide. As AI training, machine learning, and other business scenarios in the eastern regions shift westward, Xinjiang can truly transform from an electricity output region into a computing power output region.

The significance of this is no less than the security of supply of traditional energy sources such as oil and natural gas.

Another lesson brought by the turmoil in the Middle East is that the strategic value of land-based energy corridors has been reactivated.

Xinjiang is located in the hinterland of the Eurasian continent, adjacent to multiple energy-rich regions in Central Asia and the Middle East, and is a necessary passage for the China–Russia and Central Asia natural gas pipelines. When risks to traditional sea routes rise, land corridors become the second option.

At the symposium, Chen Xiaojiang, secretary of the Party Committee of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, said that Xinjiang should make good use of its geographic advantages, deepen cooperation between the central and local governments in helping Xinjiang build the Eurasian “golden corridor” and serve as a bridgehead for opening up to the West.

The underlying implication of these remarks is that central government–owned enterprises’ investment is not only investment in Xinjiang, but also service to the country’s strategy of opening up to the West.

The winds and waves in the Strait of Hormuz will eventually calm down, but the alarm bell for energy security will not stop.

Central government–owned enterprises heavily investing in Xinjiang is not a spur-of-the-moment impulse. In today’s reshaping of the global energy map, China needs a rear base that is deep enough and stable enough.

When 170 billion yuan is put in, what you get is not only projects, but also a sense of assurance.

(“Sanlihe” Studio)