DeepSeek is building a gigawatt of compute in Inner Mongolia

DeepSeek is going vertical on infrastructure. Bloomberg reports the Hangzhou lab is developing a gigawatt-scale AI data center in Ulanqab, a city of ~2 million in Inner Mongolia about 350km northwest of Beijing. It plans to build its own facility and lease capacity from neighbours — more than a dozen firms already have projects in the city. At least part of it should be live by end of 2027 or early 2028.

Ulanqab is the obvious pick: dirt-cheap electricity and a cold, dry climate that does a chunk of the cooling for free. For a lab whose entire brand is doing more with less silicon, owning the power bill matters more than owning the newest chips.

The money is moving just as fast. DeepSeek closed roughly $7B in June at a $50B valuation — its first outside round, and the largest private AI financing in Chinese history. It's now reportedly in talks for another ~$1.5B at a **$74B valuation**, with early deliberations on a listing on Shanghai's STAR Market and an internal goal of filing this year.

Why it matters: the lab that made its name on efficiency is now buying capacity like a hyperscaler — the cheap-model era was a phase, not a philosophy.