The AI arms race runs on electricity. China just lapped everyone

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff’s recent observation that China added an extraordinary 93 gigawatts of solar capacity in May 2025 alone—the equivalent of constructing three nuclear-scale power plants every day—is a ‘wake-up’ statistic.

It is an emblem of the velocity and scale with which China has been reordering the global industrial and geopolitical landscape for some time now. In a single month, China outstripped what most nations struggle to achieve in years, bringing its total installed solar capacity to nearly 1,300 gigawatts. This dwarfs India’s total of around 120 gigawatts after over a decade of determined policy effort, and exceeds the aggregate capacity of entire continents.

Yet what is perhaps more instructive than the sheer numbers is the architecture of ambition and execution underpinning this feat. China’s solar surge is not merely a triumph of central planning or subsidy. It reflects a deeply institutionalised industrial ethos that unites policy, state-directed finance, vertically integrated manufacturing, and an audacity of project execution seldom seen elsewhere.