China is developing a “six networks” plan, consisting of around 25 trillion yuan ($3.7 trillion) in investment over five years in water, electricity, computing, communications, logistics and urban pipelines. 🌊 Water: 6 trillion yuan on flood defences, restored mangroves and the south-north water transfer. 🔋 Power: 5.5 trillion yuan on smart grids, battery storage and ultra-high-voltage lines to carry solar and wind power across the country. 🛠️ Pipes: 5 trillion yuan to build or renovate 770,000 km of urban gas, water, heating and sewage networks – enough to reach the moon and back. 💻 Computing: 4 trillion yuan, with six of China’s ten data-centre clusters going to poorer western provinces like Ningxia and Gansu. These networks will work together. The grid and the water system power and cool the data centres. The data centres train AI models that help run the grid more efficiently and manage drones, robots and autonomous vehicles moving freight. This scale of planning and investment is only possible because China has retained public control of the commanding heights of the economy. The banks, the grid, the telecoms networks, and the land are publicly owned, and they’re all embedded in a planning system that works on a timescale of years and decades. Meanwhile, Britain’s privatised water companies haven’t built a major new reservoir since the early 1990s, and pump sewage into rivers instead of fixing the pipes. Renewable projects wait years for a grid connection. HS2 has been stripped back to a pretty pitiful state. Socialism is allowing China to build the economy of the future.