On June 18, the National Energy Administration (NEA) released data on national electricity consumption for May. In May, total national electricity consumption reached 867.1 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), a year-on-year increase of 6.9%.

Electricity consumption in high-tech and equipment manufacturing posted robust growth. Wu Liqiang, Assistant Director of the Statistics & Digital Intelligence Department of the China Electricity Council (CEC), provided data to reporters from Shell Finance of The Beijing News, showing that manufacturing electricity consumption nationwide rose 5.8% year-on-year in May, 4.6 percentage points higher than the growth rate in the same period last year. Specifically, power consumption of high-tech and equipment manufacturing grew 12.2% year-on-year in May, up 6.3 percentage points from the same period of last year and 2.2 percentage points from April.

According to Wu Liqiang, among sub-sectors of the national manufacturing industry, all registered double-digit growth except pharmaceutical manufacturing (9.0%) and metal products manufacturing (7.1%). Driven by strong retail sales and exports of new energy passenger vehicles in May, electricity consumption of new energy vehicle manufacturing jumped 25.5% year-on-year.

Electricity consumption in services linked to high-tech industries and new business forms maintained rapid growth. In May, nationwide power consumption of internet data services hit 9.05 billion kWh, surging 45.4% year-on-year; the cumulative consumption from January to May stood at 40.28 billion kWh, up 44.6% year-on-year. Power consumption of charging and battery-swapping services increased 59.9% year-on-year in May, with the cumulative volume reaching 66.15 billion kWh in the first five months, representing a 56.8% year-on-year rise.

Since the start of this year, electricity demand driven by artificial intelligence has become one of the hottest topics in the energy sector. New infrastructure including large AI models and intelligent computing centers has emerged as a major source of incremental power consumption.

Liu Mingyang, Deputy Director of the Electric Power Department of the NEA, stated at a press conference in late April that China’s artificial intelligence industry is undergoing rapid development, and electricity demand for computing power maintains robust growth. The 2026 Report on the Work of the Government proposed to "foster new forms of intelligent economy" and "launch new infrastructure projects including ultra-large-scale intelligent computing clusters and computing-grid coordination". As a key production factor, computing power and its energy demand are forming new growth drivers for electricity consumption.

Liu Mingyang noted that the NEA is working with relevant authorities to accelerate the coordinated development of computing and power sectors, improve policies such as direct access to green power, advance pilot projects, and boost the coordinated development of computing systems and the energy and power industry.(Reporter: Zhu Yueyi)