Community Data Center Standard — China Edition Overview
Embedding green computing, social responsibility, and community benefit mechanisms into the foundational architecture of data centers.
Why This Framework?
The data center industry faces a persistent challenge: balancing rapid growth with community trust and sustainability. By way of reference, between May 2024 and June 2025, publicly reported data center projects representing over $162 billion USD in total investment were delayed or cancelled due to NIMBY opposition (community resistance). High water consumption, high energy demand, and limited direct local employment — these challenges are not unique to any single country.
While the technical conditions for building green, low-carbon data centers are mature, the industry still lacks a credible, enforceable, and highly transparent framework to ensure data centers genuinely benefit their surrounding communities — not merely through public relations, but through structural mechanisms embedded in facility design, project financing, and daily operations.
This framework exists to fill that gap.
About This Framework
The Community Data Center Standard — China Edition (Draft v0.1) is a localized adaptation of the Community Data Center Standard open framework, published by Eternal Harmony AI, for China's legal and governance context.
⚖️ Legal Status: This document is an industry initiative framework. It carries no mandatory binding force and is not a national, industry, local, association, or enterprise standard. This framework does not replace or exempt any compliance obligations under mandatory national standards (GB) or laws and regulations. Data center operators should voluntarily adopt the guidance of this framework on the basis of meeting all applicable mandatory regulatory requirements.
This framework is organized around Five Pillars: Energy Accountability, Water Stewardship, Waste Heat Utilization, Community Economic Benefit, and Transparency & Accountability — with three compliance tiers, from "Community Committed" to "Community Exemplary," providing a progressive pathway for data centers at different stages of development.
This is not a simple Chinese translation. This framework has undergone systematic legal and governance localization, mapping international community benefit concepts to Chinese statutory mechanisms — including social stability risk assessment, special public welfare funds, and the local government investment promotion evaluation framework. All 43 clause adaptations are documented with full legal citations in Appendix A.
The Five Pillars at a Glance
Pillar 1: Energy Accountability
Ensure data center energy consumption does not increase energy costs, reduce energy availability, or increase carbon emissions for the host community. Covers grid impact neutrality, True Renewable Procurement (aligned with China's Green Electricity Certificate trading system), new generation requirements, on-site or proximate generation, and energy efficiency ratings compliant with GB 40879-2021.
Pillar 2: Water Stewardship
Data centers shall not deplete, pollute, or compete for local water resources. Covers local watershed net-zero water balance replenishment, WUE thresholds, water stress assessment, and prohibition on competing with residential and agricultural water use.
Pillar 3: Waste Heat Utilization
Convert waste heat from data centers into usable community resources. Covers waste heat recovery infrastructure requirements, community heating network integration, and seasonal thermal storage solutions.
Pillar 4: Community Economic Benefit
Data centers must generate measurable economic benefits for the host community. Covers local employment commitments, local supply chain priority procurement, and community benefit sharing agreements — implemented through China's established institutional systems including social stability risk assessment, special public welfare funds, and the local government investment promotion evaluation framework.
Pillar 5: Transparency & Accountability
All indicators affecting the surrounding community shall be publicly disclosed in accordance with the law. Annual audits shall be conducted by independent third parties on a mandatory basis. The compliance-based disclosure principle runs throughout this framework — information disclosure shall meet the requirements of lawfulness, legitimacy, and necessity, maximizing community oversight while safeguarding national security and commercial confidentiality.
Three-Tier Compliance System
| Tier | Name | Core Requirements |
| Tier 1 | Community Committed | Publicly commit to adopting this framework, submit a compliance roadmap, establish baseline data |
| Tier 2 | Community Mutual Benefit | Meet all five pillar core indicators, undergo annual independent audit |
| Tier 3 | Community Exemplary | Exceed core indicators, achieve industry-leading performance in at least two pillar areas |
⚙️ Compliance Baseline: All three tiers operate on top of the mandatory baseline of Multi-Level Protection Scheme 2.0 (MLPS 2.0, GB/T 22239-2019) under the Cybersecurity Law. Data centers must first satisfy all MLPS 2.0 requirements at their applicable level before applying for this framework's three-tier certification. Scenarios involving Critical Information Infrastructure (CII) require evaluation of whether an upgrade to MLPS Level 4 is necessary.
43 China Localization Adaptations
This framework maintains clause numbering consistent with the original international framework for cross-referencing, while incorporating 43 clause-by-clause localizations tailored to China's legal, regulatory, and governance systems. Each adaptation is annotated with the corresponding Chinese law or standard basis, and categorized as:
- [Mandatory GB]: Corresponding to mandatory national standards — must comply, no concessions
- [Recommended GB/T]: Corresponding to recommended national standards — providing best practice guidance
Full adaptation details and legal citations are available in Appendix A and Article 6: 43 China Localization Adaptations in Detail.
Alignment with China's National Strategies
This framework's design is highly synergistic with several of China's national strategies:
- "East Data West Compute" Project: Community data centers serve as edge nodes in city computing networks, handling low-latency "hot data," complementing the "cold data" batch processing at national hub nodes
- "Dual Carbon" Goals: Aligns with carbon emission dual-control policies, guiding data centers to transition from energy consumption dual-control to carbon emission dual-control, exploring CCER carbon credit pathways
- "New Quality Productive Forces": Achieving higher-quality intelligent computing output with fewer resource inputs, promoting market-based allocation of data factors
Downloads & Resources
This framework and all supporting documents are published bilingually in Chinese and English, available for free download:
| Document | Chinese | English |
| Full Standard | Read Now · Light · Dark | Read Now · Light · Dark |
| Executive Summary (5-page decision-maker overview) | Read Now · Light · Dark | Read Now · Light · Dark |
| Appendix A (43 clause mapping table) | Read Now · Light · Dark | Read Now · Light · Dark |
| Bibliography (60+ cited references) | Read Now · Light · Dark | Read Now · Light · Dark |
| Supplementary Technical Analysis (5 research gap analyses) | Read Now · Light · Dark | Read Now · Light · Dark |
Future Outlook
This framework is an industry initiative framework and carries no mandatory binding force. Going forward, the initiative's proponents look forward to collaborating with legally qualified social organizations (such as relevant industry associations and academic societies) to jointly advance the development of relevant association standards when conditions are mature, with formal publication in accordance with the procedural requirements of the Standardization Law of the People's Republic of China.
Contact
For technical support or certification inquiries: mi@eternalharmony.ai
This framework is a publicly released, freely accessible open framework available to all operators willing to meet these benchmarks.
Community Data Center Standard — China Edition · Draft v0.1 · June 2026
Published by: Eternal Harmony AI (an operating name of Eternal Harmony LLC)
This framework is an independent initiative, not approved or endorsed by any government agency
Eternal Harmony is an AI research and development company. This is part of our public-interest research on technology infrastructure and community impact.
This framework is an independent initiative, not approved or endorsed by any government agency.