(Yicai) Aug. 12 -- China’s asset-light technology companies, artificial intelligence champion DeepSeek among them, appear to have begun taking steps to develop their own AI infrastructure.

According to a recent notice posted on DeepSeek’s website, the Hangzhou-based firm is hiring for a broad range of engineering talent needed for large-scale data center construction, including specialists in electrical engineering, heating‑ventilation‑air‑conditioning systems, automation, energy, communications, computer science, and environmental and civil engineering.

The advertised positions are based in Beijing, Hangzhou, and Ulanqab in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, which is playing an increasing role in China’s AI and wider computing infrastructure buildout because of lower local electricity prices thanks to the region’s abundant renewable energy resources.

The hiring effort suggests that DeepSeek, well-known for developing frontier AI models, is widening its footprint into computing infrastructure. “Every generation encounters its own infrastructure revolution,” it pointed out in the notice.

TikTok-owner ByteDance has also taken similar steps this year, setting up new subsidiaries in Ulanqab and in Zhongwei in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Their activities are closely linked to the expansion of computing infrastructure in those regions.

Rising demand for AI computing power is driving a layered approach to data center construction, an industry source told Yicai. Model training and other computing workloads with low real‑time requirements are often built in remote areas where land and electricity costs are lower, while inference workloads with higher real‑time performance demands need to be closer to economically developed areas, the person said.

As a result, competition in the AI era is moving beyond the procurement of graphics processing units into land, power, and network resources, the person noted.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev