[Making Achievements in a New Era, Striving Forward on a New Journey] — A Detailed Look at Surveying and Design Works: Tunnels and Underground Spaces (Part 3)

Release time:

2022-12-08 13:41

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Editor's Note

The towering mountains have long been an obstacle to development. As the saying goes, “A single day in the cave feels like a thousand years in the world.” The story of Yu Gong moving the mountains is deeply inspiring—but it cannot change the reality that these mountains continue to stand as barriers to progress. Over the past 64 years, under the leadership of the great Communist Party of China, surveyors and engineers, armed with the sharp sword of technology and following the veins of the earth, have tamed these stubborn mountains, creating one breathtaking “fairy cave” after another. Thanks to their efforts, the mountains have bowed their heads and given way to development, allowing countless hidden gems and extraordinary landscapes to unfold before our eyes!

Today, we continue to launch [ Achieve Meritorious Deeds in the New Era Embarking on a New Journey—A Detailed Look at Kanshe’s Projects: The Tunnel and Underground Space Section—The Innovative Application Project of Underground Space: the Gui’an Tencent Qixingdong Vault Data Center.

Tencent Qixingdong Storage Data Center in Gui'an New Area

Project Overview

The Tencent Qixingdong Data Center in Gui'an New Area is China’s first data center housed in a cave complex. The project covers a total area of approximately 776 mu, with an indoor建筑面积 of about 30,000 square meters. It can accommodate up to 50,000 servers and has a total investment of 820 million yuan. Construction began in September 2017 and was completed in July 2020. The project addresses the challenging issues of high energy consumption and data security coordination in data centers by constructing a cluster of caves deep within the mountain, where electronic information equipment is centrally located. This data center is “highly concealed, highly protected, and highly secure,” and represents a green, efficient disaster recovery data center.

Real-life view of Tencent Qixingdong Vault-style Data Center

The Tencent Qixingdong Vault Data Center adopts a brand-new underground vault-style architectural structure. During its construction, it faced numerous challenges. The core issues included: how to make intensive use of the underground space in accordance with modular design principles and fully leverage the advantages of the mountain terrain to meet the project’s functional requirements; how to ensure the project’s safety without being guided by corresponding fire protection and civil defense regulations; and how to meet the project’s operational environment and energy efficiency requirements within the complex network of underground vaults.

Technical Features

(1) Innovatively designing a brand-new data center structural model featuring underground cavern storage.

Breaking away from traditional design concepts, we propose an innovative data center structural model featuring ultra-large cross-section tunnels with extremely small clearances and multiple intersecting tunnels and shafts. This design can meet the requirements of a green disaster recovery data center that offers "high concealment, high protection, and high security." By fully leveraging the geographical environment and the advantages of the mountain terrain, and integrating equipment parameters with the unique characteristics of tunnel structures, the equipment is designed in a modular fashion using square enclosures. This approach enables flexible assembly and disassembly among modules, ensures independent operation without interference, and maximizes the utilization of the cavern space.

Tencent Qixingdong Vault-style Data Center Main Structure

(2) Security Design: Building a Data Center with the Highest Domestic Protection Level

Tencent’s Qixingdongkoo Data Center is designed as the civilian building with the highest civil defense rating. It leverages tunnel systems and natural rock formations to avoid or mitigate damage from conventional weapons, and its structural design meets “nuclear-bomb-level” protection standards. Compared to traditional ground-based data centers with lower civil defense ratings, this facility features a comprehensive defense system that excels in spatial layout, structural resilience, and advanced defensive technologies. It offers high levels of protection against natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes, as well as man-made explosive threats, significantly enhancing and ensuring the data center’s security.

Tencent Qixingdong Vault-style Data Center IT Tunnel Entrance Civil Defense Project

(3) Low-carbon design achieves world-leading energy efficiency levels for data centers.

The innovative ventilation system for data centers—combining dense tunnel clusters with shaft clusters—enables a cold-and-hot, low-carbon circulation. By leveraging the excellent thermal insulation properties of the surrounding rock mass in the caverns, energy savings are achieved. Furthermore, energy efficiency is further enhanced across four key stages: air intake, airflow ducts, cooling modules, and exhaust vents. The Tencent Qixing Cave Data Center boasts an ultra-low Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) below 1.1, significantly lower than the average PUE of newly built data centers in China, which stands at 1.73. This achievement places the center at a world-leading level of energy efficiency. During his inspection of the project in 2020, Premier Li Keqiang praised it as an “environmentally friendly, low-carbon” green initiative.

Premier Li Keqiang inspects Tencent’s Qixingdong Rack-Based Data Center on-site (Image source: China Government Network).

Meaning and Effectiveness

The Tencent Qixingdong Data Center is a flagship project under the national “East Data, West Computing” policy. It serves as a representative of the new-generation data centers outlined in the nation’s “Action Plan for the Development of New-Generation Data Centers.” Upon completion, it will be renowned both domestically and internationally for its multi-faceted, high-level security protections and leading-edge energy efficiency.

Relying on Tencent Qixingdong Database Data Center, the company has obtained a patent. 2 Item: Author one monograph. 1 standard, to be undertaken One research project and one application for an innovation team were submitted. The individual was awarded the First Prize of the 2022 “Tunnel and Underground Space Engineering Innovation Award” by the China Highway Society.