Hong Kong, where every inch is worth its weight in gold, awards a 110,000-square-meter land parcel to build the "largest data park in history." Runze Technology wins the bid and begins construction.

By / Sina Finance Hong Kong Station Zhao Lan

Sha Ling in the New Territories— a place in Hong Kong that’s “as far north as it can possibly get,” just separated from Shenzhen by only one river.

To the north of the river are the Lo Wu Port entry building and the Lo Wu Commercial City, and the hustle and bustle of Shennan Avenue’s traffic is clearly visible; to the south of the river is Hong Kong— besides the natural scenery of the Lingnan hills, there is almost nothing else.

In 2023, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government’s “Policy Address” announced that Sha Ling would be used for science and technology innovation (innovation and tech) related purposes. Three years later, “the largest” data park in Hong Kong history will break ground here and become the largest data port in the whole territory.

** “Hong Kong’s largest data park” — Runze Technology, an A-share company, wins the bid and starts construction**

The Sha Ling data park land uses a special “two-envelope system” for open bidding. It doesn’t simply determine the winner by price; instead, it conducts a comprehensive assessment of the bidders’ industrial strength and development potential.

The winning bidders are Hong Kong Runfeng Zhisuan Technology Development Co., Ltd. and Senggu Tech (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd. The final holding company is Runze Technology (300442.SZ), which is listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

The Hong Kong government said that in the past, Runze Technology had abundant experience in developing high-end data centers. In Mainland China, it has developed and operates high-end data center facilities and large-scale data port projects in multiple cities.

Public information shows that Runze Technology’s headquarters is located in Langfang, Hebei, near Beijing’s core urban area. It covers 2,010 mu, about 1.34 million square meters. In addition, in the Yangtze River Delta region— Zhejiang Pinghu; in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area— Foshan and Huizhou in Guangdong; in the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle— Chongqing and Danzhou in Hainan Free Trade Port; and in the Northwest region— Lanzhou in Gansu, among other places, the company provides computing power infrastructure services specifically for internet platforms, cloud providers, and AI enterprises, as well as data or intelligent computing centers.

(Figure shows Zhou Chaonan, Chairman of Runze Technology)

Building a data park is a heavy-asset model, but compared with Mainland projects on the scale of several hundred thousand square meters, building an 110,000-square-meter park in Hong Kong seems to be “a sure thing.”

Zhou Chaonan, Chairman of Runze Technology, said the company already has more than 30 data centers of this kind under construction in Mainland China, so funding is still relatively sufficient. The Hong Kong project will be advanced strictly in line with local laws and regulations, adapting to local conditions.

Sun Dong, Director of the Innovation, Technology and Industry Bureau of Hong Kong, said that before the project was implemented, it had already fully considered people’s livelihood arrangements such as local energy supply and wastewater treatment, which can sufficiently meet the needs of all kinds of users.

The Sha Ling data park project covers an area of more than 110,000 square meters, with a total gross floor area of 250,000 square meters. Nearly 90% of the plan is for high-end data centers. The total investment of the project is HK$23.8 billion. It is expected to begin formal operations in 2029. In its first three years, it can generate about HK$4.6 billion in economic output and create about 180 technical jobs.

After the park is completed, it will be able to provide up to 180 trillion floating-point operations per second (PFLOPS), which will significantly increase Hong Kong’s computing power supply.

According to data from Hong Kong’s Digital Policy Office in January 2026, Hong Kong’s total computing power scale is 5,000 PFLOPS. Of that, 3,000 PFLOPS come from Hong Kong’s flagship project, the “Hong Kong Digital Port Artificial Intelligence Supercomputing Center,” and the remaining 2,000 PFLOPS come from other computing power facilities.

This means that once the Sha Ling data park is put into operation, Hong Kong’s total computing power scale will increase by 36 times.

** From a “cemetery” to a “big factory”— Hong Kong’s North District New Territories land adjacent to Shenzhen is currently being rezoned**

Sha Ling is located in Hong Kong’s North District in the New Territories, adjacent to Shenzhen’s Luohu. Since 1951, it has been listed as a Hong Kong border restricted area and has long been kept closed. Most of the area consists of undeveloped wasteland with few people around.

Some land was used for farming, with a small number of farms and fish ponds. Historically, many Luohu residents had held boundary-crossing cultivation permits, and “cross-border farming” existed in Sha Ling.

Most of the land has been traditional cemetery grounds. When Hong Kong people mention Sha Ling, they only know it as the “Sha Ling Cemetery,” which is known for having many headstones without names.

In 2010, the Hong Kong government originally planned to develop Sha Ling as a “super funeral city,” with a relocation/placement facility providing around 200,000 niche spaces for ashes, a crematorium with 10 cremators, and funeral homes with 30 halls.

However, in October 2023, this plan was officially announced to be abandoned in the “Policy Address” by Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu, and the two hectares of land originally allocated for this project were repurposed for innovation and technology and related uses.

** Why did the land use direction change at a large scale? There’s only one reason— the rise of Shenzhen’s technology industry and Hong Kong’s ambition in technology.**

With the booming development of Shenzhen’s technology industry, Shenzhen’s scaled cluster effect has long been in place. Hong Kong hopes to form a synergistic effect with Shenzhen’s science and technology innovation parks.

And because it is adjacent to Shenzhen, the Hong Kong government has planned a “Northern Metropolis” in the Northern New Territories (hereinafter “North Metropolis”), and Sha Ling is located in an important position within it.

Sun Dong, Secretary for Innovation and Technology of Hong Kong, described that the project has “timing, geographic advantages, and people.” The Sha Ling park is located at a hub within the port economic belt of Hong Kong and Shenzhen. It can complement the strengths of computing power clusters in the Greater Bay Area and become a core engine for the development of Hong Kong’s AI industry.

In terms of building the entire North Metropolis, the Hong Kong government plans to spend nearly HK$300 billion, making the North Metropolis the “center of focus for Hong Kong’s city construction and economic development over the next 20 years.”

Of this HK$300 billion, the Hong Kong government used HK$150 billion from the Exchange Fund to fund major infrastructure construction. This is also the first time since 1984 that Hong Kong has used the Exchange Fund to support infrastructure.

In February this year, Hong Kong announced its first “five-year plan,” hoping to deeply align with national strategies and deeply integrate into the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

And the peak period of spending on North Metropolis projects is precisely in the next five years, during which the basic engineering expenditure will increase from HK$90 billion per year to HK$120 billion per year.

In Hong Kong’s first “five-year plan,” the government mentioned promoting the innovation and technology industry, which includes building the Sha Ling data park computing power hub within the North Metropolis. In terms of regional synergy, it hopes to deepen cooperation between Hong Kong and Shenzhen and build a Hong Kong-Shenzhen innovation and technology corridor. By connecting with the national “East Data to West Computing” (Dong Shu Xi Suan) project, it will build a cross-border data circulation system.

** Urgent demand for computing power in Hong Kong in the AI era**

Hong Kong is pushing forward full steam the construction of an international innovation and technology hub. Artificial intelligence is the core direction, but Hong Kong lacks high-end data parks of a certain scale and advanced computing power facilities, making it difficult to support the rapid development of the AI industry.

At present, Hong Kong is actively advancing the “Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Development Blueprint,” actively responding to the national “Artificial Intelligence+” initiative.

The company said that the launch of the Runze (Hong Kong) Sha Ling data park is an important practical step to advance the construction of Hong Kong’s innovation and technology infrastructure and to cultivate new quality productive forces. It will help cultivate digital talent in Hong Kong, inject new vitality into launching a science and technology innovation ecosystem, and support Hong Kong in strengthening the “dual-wheel-driven” development framework of an “international financial center + an international innovation and technology center.”

Zhou Chaonan, Chairman of Runze Technology, also said that Hong Kong is a reservoir where excellent universities and talent are concentrated, and it is a “very good place,” so the company chose Hong Kong and chose Sha Ling, hoping that through its efforts it can build Sha Ling into a high ground for innovation and technology.

Over the next three years, perhaps not only Sha Ling, but the entire North Metropolis of the New Territories will have a brand-new look.

Looking south from the Luohu Port, maybe barren hills will no longer be seen— only high-rise buildings.

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责任编辑：张恒星