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West-to-east energy, east-to-west computing: The Uyghur costs of China’s digital order

West-to-east energy, east-to-west computing: The Uyghur costs of China’s digital order

China held a major digital economy gathering under the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) framework in Urumqi, the capital of the Uyghur region, in September 2026. Nine member states agreed on a joint ministerial statement and a list of priority cooperation areas for 2026 and 2027. Critics and human rights researchers argue that the event served a dual purpose: expanding China’s digital and technological influence across Central Asia while projecting an image of stability and prosperity over a region with a deeply troubled human rights record.

Energy and computing power drawn from the same region

For decades, China has moved oil, gas, coal and electricity from the Uyghur region to more industrialised parts of the country. Officials are now adding computing infrastructure to that flow. Under a national initiative directing data processing work toward western China, large clusters of computing hardware are being planned in and around Urumqi, with the stated aim of exporting artificial intelligence processing capacity to Central Asian and broader Eurasian markets.

Beijing officially designates the Uyghur homeland as a national energy and resource strategic security base. Reported figures for 2025 show the region producing the equivalent of 510 million metric tons of standard coal in primary energy and holding more than 170 million kilowatts of installed renewable capacity. Human rights organisations and academic researchers have raised concerns about the conditions under which Uyghurs work in related industries, including solar supply chains, pointing to indicators of coercion in state-directed labour transfer programmes.

Digital governance concerns and the forum’s political framing

The SCO cooperation framework established after a 2025 forum in Tianjin includes a platform that tracks projects monthly and reviews progress quarterly. Cooperation areas discussed include smart cities, digital identity systems, cross-border data flows and AI datasets — technologies that researchers note can expand both public services and state surveillance capacity. The forum did not publicly address privacy protections, independent oversight or remedies for potential misuse.

  • Nine SCO member states signed the 2026 digital economy ministerial statement
  • Previous cooperation cases include data-sharing projects with Uzbekistan, Russia, Pakistan and Kazakhstan
  • A regional standards alliance is planned, with Chinese frameworks proposed as a priority reference

A senior regional official was reported to have described the event as a major political task intended to project an image of social stability and economic progress. Human rights bodies, including the United Nations, have previously documented mass surveillance and detention practices in the region. Independent observers note that without greater transparency, the human rights implications of individual digital cooperation projects cannot be fully evaluated.

This article is adapted from “West-to-east energy, east-to-west computing: The Uyghur costs of China’s digital order” published by Global Voices, licensed under CC BY 3.0. Changes were made. Featured image: AI-generated illustration.

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