Research firm SemiAnalysis says a Chinese AI data centre campus in Inner Mongolia delivered its first 120 MW phase within a year at a fifth of US costs. In a site-visit report published November 7, it writes: “Its first 120MW phase was delivered within a year at a fifth of US costs.”
The campus, called Galaxy, is in Ulanqab and is “planned for up to 800MW of IT capacity”, which SemiAnalysis puts “on par with” the about 820 MW of critical IT capacity at the Stargate campus in Abilene, Texas. SemiAnalysis says the region “has lined up 25GW of announced datacenter projects”; by our arithmetic, that is about 31 campuses the size of Galaxy.
Business Pill · Vertical Integration
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on vertical integration and stacked margins. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss Envision or Galaxy.
The key insight: SemiAnalysis says Envision’s Galaxy campus in Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia, delivered its first 120 MW phase within a year at a fifth of US costs, on a site planned for up to 800 MW, on par with about 820 MW of critical IT at Stargate Abilene. It says the region has 25GW of announced projects, about 31 Galaxy-size campuses by our arithmetic.
SemiAnalysis says it visited in September. The campus is owned by Envision Group, which it describes as a renewable systems integrator with more than 100GW of wind turbines installed worldwide. It is a different company from the Galaxy that leases the Helios campus in Texas to CoreWeave.
The report says “All four phases are built-to-suit for two internet giants”. It does not name the two customers. It says the initial phase was delivered in August 2026 and that the full campus is expected to be completed by the end of 2027.
Around the campus, the report cites “nearly 30,000 construction workers on site across 22 datacenter projects according to a local report”, in the surrounding Chahar High-tech Zone.
A Stargate-size campus in China: Envision’s Galaxy campus in Ulanqab delivered its first 120 MW within a year at a fifth of US costs, is planned for up to 800 MW against about 820 MW of critical IT at Stargate Abilene, and the region has 25 GW of announced projects, about 31 Galaxy-size campuses by our arithmetic. Data: SemiAnalysis, 7 Nov 2026, not independently verified.
The Cost Figures
SemiAnalysis gives three market figures for China. “Rents have roughly halved over the past five years, to about $40/kW/month excluding power.” “Capex has fallen about 25% over the same period, to less than $3mm per MW.” “Power in Inner Mongolia costs about $0.055/kWh all-in, among the lowest in the world.”
The report also says returns are low: “Project returns are thin, with IRRs squeezed hard, so the reward often comes from elsewhere.” For Envision, it says, data centres create demand for the power and equipment it already makes.
Wind Instead of Gas
The report contrasts the power at the two campuses: “Abilene draws on the grid and on gas turbines on site, while Galaxy relies largely on wind.” It says Envision aims to supply over 60% of the first two phases’ power use with its own wind farms.
Those farms, it says, “have a combined 420MW of installed capacity, about 1.75 times the 240MW datacenter load”, and are linked through a dedicated line instead of the public grid, with a 4-hour battery system shifting power into calm hours.
Inside one 5MW hall, the report says, solid-state transformers convert 10kV AC from the grid straight to 800V DC for the racks. It says roughly a quarter of Chinese datacenters built in the past decade run on DC, while “about 97% of US datacenters still use AC UPS”.
The Backlash Comparison
SemiAnalysis calls Inner Mongolia the “West Texas” of China and writes that “while the Lone Star State faces its highest ever anti-datacenter sentiment, Inner Mongolia is accelerating and faces no such backlash”.
The variable here is build cost and build time per megawatt of AI capacity. SemiAnalysis puts Galaxy’s first phase at a fifth of US costs and within a year to deliver, at a campus about the size of Abilene’s core. By our arithmetic, at a fifth of the cost, a budget that builds one megawatt at US costs would build about five at Galaxy’s cost level.
The Structural Read
As we read the report, the comparison with Abilene is about cost and speed at similar scale: both campuses are planned around their own power, with gas turbines on site at Abilene and wind at Galaxy.
As we read the report, the cost advantage comes with thin returns: SemiAnalysis says IRRs are squeezed hard and that Envision’s reward comes from selling its own power and equipment.
As we read the sources, the US contrast is about consent as well as cost: SemiAnalysis describes no backlash in Inner Mongolia, while US data-centre limits led in 40 of 41 local ballot votes on unofficial counts.
SemiAnalysis, 7 Nov 2026
“we found the speed, scale, ultra low cost, and deep vertical integration astonishing.”
Three Implications
FOR US BUILDERS SemiAnalysis puts Galaxy’s first 120 MW phase at a fifth of US costs, delivered within a year.
FOR THE CHINA MARKET SemiAnalysis says rents have roughly halved over five years to about $40/kW/month excluding power, and capex has fallen about 25% to less than $3mm per MW.
FOR POWER STRATEGY SemiAnalysis says Envision aims to supply over 60% of the first two phases’ power from its own wind farms, with 420MW of wind for a 240MW load.
The analysis says: “The structural bottleneck isn’t computing, it’s electrons.”
As we read it, Galaxy shows one answer to that bottleneck: a campus that brings its own wind farms and line. The analysis does not discuss Galaxy or Inner Mongolia.
What Is Not Established
The cost comparison is SemiAnalysis’s; the free part of the report does not give the US cost per megawatt it compared against, and we did not check it. The two customers are not named. The 25GW figure is announced projects, not built capacity; SemiAnalysis says its next report will look at what limits development in the region.
This Week In The AI Supercycle
The Great Convergence of Capital, Power, and Geopolitics
This week’s issue: for two years the AI build-out was priced as a supply story, and last week as a credit story. This week it was priced as a permission story, and the answer arrived as a cost, not a ban.
SemiAnalysis says Envision’s Galaxy campus in Inner Mongolia delivered its first 120 MW within a year at a fifth of US costs, on a site planned for up to 800 MW, on par with Abilene. It says the region has 25GW of announced projects, about 31 Galaxies by our arithmetic, and faces no backlash like that in Texas.
A note on sourcing. Figures and quotations are from SemiAnalysis’s report “We Visited China’s Stargate in Inner Mongolia”, published November 7, 2026, and read in its free section on November 8. They were not independently verified. The arithmetic is ours.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
