Infrastructure as the Foundation of New-Form Productive Forces: Integrating Water Networks, Computing Power Grids, and Mineral Resource Governance for National Long-Term Security

The “Steel and Bone” of New-Form Productive Forces: Integrated Construction of Water Networks, Computing-Power Networks, and the Mineral Resources Law to Secure China’s Long-Term National Resilience

Recent State Council executive meetings have swiftly approved both the development plan for six new-generation infrastructure networks (“the Six Networks”) and the Implementation Regulations of the Mineral Resources Law, while simultaneously launching a long-term mechanism to resolve local government debt risks. This policy package is no isolated initiative—it marks a defining pivot in China’s developmental paradigm: a systematic shift from “demand-side stabilization” to “supply-side foundation-building,” and an evolution from short-term growth stabilization toward a dual-track strategy focused on medium-to-long-term structural upgrading and strategic security capacity building. Its core logic is unmistakable: leveraging the infrastructural embodiment of “new-form productive forces” and ensuring autonomous, controllable access to critical resources—jointly forging the physical skeleton and institutional sinews of high-quality development.

The “Six Networks”: Not a Conceptual Juxtaposition, but the Spatial Embodiment of New-Form Productive Forces

The so-called “water network, new-generation power grid, computing-power network, next-generation communications network, urban underground pipeline network, and logistics network” appear at first glance to be six categories of infrastructure. In reality, they constitute a three-dimensional spatial projection of new-form productive forces across China’s territory. They decisively break with the linear, project-centric mindset of traditional infrastructure investment (“spreading out projects, ramping up construction”)—instead prioritizing system-wide resilience, intelligent coupling, and holistic integration.

The water network now transcends its conventional roles in irrigation and flood control. Through digital twins and AI-driven intelligent scheduling, it enables dynamic, optimized allocation of water resources across agriculture, industry, ecological conservation, and urban agglomerations—functioning as the “life-circulation system” of a climate-resilient society.

The new-generation power grid has evolved beyond mere electricity transmission into the central nervous system of an energy internet—integrating renewable energy absorption, distributed energy storage coordination, vehicle-to-grid (V2G) interaction, and virtual power plant aggregation.

And the computing-power network serves as the true “neural core” of the entire system—not merely a collection of data centers, but a cross-regional, cross-tier, and cross-entity computing-resource dispatch network enabled by the national “East Data, West Computing” initiative. It allows advanced productivity enablers—such as large AI model training, scientific computing, and industrial simulation—to be deployed affordably and efficiently at scale.

ByteDance’s announcement that its 2024 AI capital expenditure will surge to RMB 200 billion (a 25% year-on-year increase) is a microcosmic validation of this trend. Behind this figure lies not just a single corporate decision, but a broader market confidence—rooted in the maturing readiness of the computing-power network infrastructure—that domestic computing supply capacity is now stable and reliable. When computing power becomes as readily available, on-demand, and plug-and-play as water or electricity, AI innovation shifts decisively from lab-bound experimentation to scalable industrial adoption—marking new-form productive forces’ critical leap from “technical feasibility” to “economic viability.”

The Mineral Resources Law Regulations: A Strategic Upgrade—from Resource Dependence to Rule-Based Leadership

If the “Six Networks” constitute the “torso” of new-form productive forces, then strategic mineral resources are their irreplaceable “blood” and “bones.” The promulgation of the Implementation Regulations of the Mineral Resources Law signals a fundamental transformation in China’s governance logic for critical resources: shifting from past emphasis on extraction volume and output controls to a comprehensive focus on end-to-end security, scientifically updated resource classification, and enhanced capacity to shape global rule-making. For the first time in administrative regulation form, the Regulations establish a dynamic adjustment mechanism for the “List of Strategic Minerals,” explicitly incorporating lithium, cobalt, rare earths, nickel, platinum-group metals, and other elements vital to new-energy systems, semiconductors, and high-end manufacturing into the national strategic reserve system. They also impose binding requirements on exploration block exit protocols, green mine construction standards, and comprehensive utilization of associated minerals.

This institutional design directly addresses acute pain points in today’s global resource competition. Against the backdrop of persistent tensions in the Strait of Hormuz and allegations of “piratical conduct” by U.S. naval forces in key maritime chokepoints, the security of global shipping lanes has become markedly uncertain. As the world’s largest producer of lithium-ion batteries and processor of rare earths, China faces systemic vulnerability if upstream resource supply remains excessively reliant on a single maritime route or geopolitically volatile regions. The Regulations’ dual-track strategy—“domestic mineral exploration breakthroughs” coupled with “diversified overseas resource deployment”—is essentially about building “land-sea integrated, domestic-foreign coordinated” redundancy in resource security. Even more profoundly, it aims to reshape pricing power: With China controlling over 70% of global rare-earth separation capacity and more than 60% of lithium-salt processing, and with state reserves actively modulating market rhythms, upstream resource prices will no longer be dictated unilaterally by international speculators or geopolitical shocks—but rather embedded within China’s industrial strategy timeline, enabling profit distribution to flow back toward mid- and downstream high-value manufacturing segments.

Convergence of Dual Pillars: Security and Development Are No Longer a Zero-Sum Game

The water network safeguards the baseline of ecological and food security; the computing-power network lifts the ceiling of innovation in the digital era; and the Mineral Resources Law secures the material foundations of industrial civilization. Though seemingly disparate domains, they converge powerfully at the intersection of two overarching themes: “infrastructural embodiment of new-form productive forces” and “autonomous, controllable access to critical resources.” This convergence is already reshaping capital market perceptions:

• The technology hardware sector benefits from incremental demand driven by the computing-power network—servers, optical modules, liquid-cooling equipment, and more.
• The energy metals sector undergoes a value re-rating—from cyclical commodity exposure to strategic asset allocation—fueled by scientific resource categorization and robust reserve mechanisms.
• Power grid equipment firms secure high-value orders in new-grid construction—including ultra-high-voltage (UHV), flexible HVDC, and intelligent terminal systems—enabling their transition from “equipment suppliers” to “integrated system solution providers.”

Critically, the simultaneous embedding of a local government debt resolution mechanism underscores policymakers’ clear-eyed recognition: without fiscal sustainability, even the most ambitious infrastructure blueprints risk collapse; without resource-security underpinnings, even the most advanced technological breakthroughs remain vulnerable to external coercion. Thus, investment in the “Six Networks” is not Keynesian stimulus—it is precision “drip irrigation” targeting nodes with strong network externalities, significant technology spillover effects, and enduring strategic-security value. Likewise, the revision of the Mineral Resources Law is no inward-looking exercise. By establishing transparent, predictable regulatory frameworks, it actively attracts compliant domestic and foreign capital into green mining development—achieving win-win outcomes for both security and growth.

When the steady drip of the water network merges with the surging current of computing power—and when the atomic structure of rare earths is re-encoded within domestically produced chips—the foundation of China’s new-form productive forces is no longer abstract rhetoric. It takes tangible form in fiber-optic cables laid across provinces, in pumped-storage hydropower stations rising in mountain valleys, and in mineral rights contracts signed on sovereign soil. This is far more than infrastructure upgrading—it is a quiet, deep-current reinvention of national capability: anchoring China’s developmental coordinates in an uncertain world through the certainty of institutional provision and physical infrastructure.