China’s MIIT Launches Inclusive Computing Initiative, Unlocking Policy Benefits for Storage Capacity and Storage Industry

The General Office of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) of China issued a notice on April 2 to launch a special campaign to empower small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with inclusive computing power. The initiative will fully deploy an integrated inclusive service system covering computing power, storage and networks. By the end of 2028, China aims to build an inclusive computing ecosystem featuring wide coverage, low cost, high-quality services, a vibrant industrial environment and strong talent support, covering no fewer than 10 industrial sectors, and significantly lowering the barrier for SMEs to access and use computing and storage resources.

The campaign highlights the coordinated development of the "trinity of computing power, storage capacity and network capacity", elevating data storage to an important strategic supporting role. The document explicitly calls for the construction of advanced storage centers and large-scale storage resource pools, strengthens the supply of high-performance storage and cross-regional data mobility, and enables "on-site computing and on-demand data flow".

In terms of implementation, the policy encourages basic telecom enterprises and computing service providers to build a nearby accessible storage resource service system for SMEs, improving data processing and storage response efficiency through unified scheduling. It also introduces an inclusive subsidy mechanism featuring computing coupons, storage coupons and network coupons, covering cloud storage, data backup, disaster recovery and archiving. New models such as computing power banks and computing power supermarkets will be explored to promote the pooling and sharing of idle computing and storage resources, supported by flexible billing to further reduce costs for SMEs.

The initiative will directly drive the construction of infrastructure including edge storage, distributed storage, all-flash storage, optical storage and cold data archiving, benefiting the entire industrial chain of IDC operation, enterprise-level storage equipment, NAND Flash, DRAM and cloud storage services. With the integration of computing, storage and network as a focus, low-cost and inclusive supply of computing and storage resources will accelerate AI applications for SMEs in R&D design, manufacturing, intelligent inspection and precision marketing, laying a solid digital foundation for fostering "little giant" and specialized, sophisticated, unique and new enterprises.