Reduce investment in communication networks; this year, operators will spend hundreds of billions on computing power.

As of March 26, the three major Chinese telecom operators—China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom—have all disclosed their 2025 annual performance reports.

China Mobile’s revenue last year was 1.050187 trillion yuan, a 0.9% increase; net profit attributable to the parent was 137.095 billion yuan, a 0.9% decrease.

China Telecom’s revenue was approximately 523.925 billion yuan, a 0.1% increase; net profit attributable to the parent was about 33.185 billion yuan, a 0.5% increase.

China Unicom’s 2025 revenue was 392.22 billion yuan, a 0.7% increase; net profit attributable to the parent was 9.13 billion yuan, a 1.1% increase.

However, more eye-catching than the revenue figures is the shift in investment logic behind them. The three operators have all chosen a strategy of “streamlining total volume and optimizing structure.”

In 2026, China Mobile plans to spend 136.6 billion yuan on capital expenditures, down 9.5% year-on-year; China Telecom expects around 73 billion yuan, a 9.2% decrease; China Unicom’s investment will drop to about 50 billion yuan.

Overall investment is shrinking, but the three operators are unanimously establishing “computing power” as the absolute core of capital expenditure.

China Mobile stated that capital spending on communication networks will decline, while investment in computing and intelligent networks will significantly increase.

According to the financial report, China Mobile’s planned capital expenditure for 2026 is 136.6 billion yuan, down 9.5% year-on-year. Of this, 37.8 billion yuan (up 62.4%) will be invested in computing networks, accounting for about 28% of the total plan; intelligent network investments will reach 8.9 billion yuan, up 19.8%.

At the earnings conference, China Mobile’s management said the company regards computing services as a key growth driver for high-quality development, aiming to double revenue by the end of the “14th Five-Year Plan.” Meanwhile, the company will accelerate the development of AIDC, computing, and token capabilities.

The financial report shows that in 2025, revenue from computing services grew rapidly, reaching 89.8 billion yuan, an 11.1% increase. Driven by the explosive growth in AI computing demand, intelligent computing services became the primary engine, with a growth rate of 279%, boosting cloud computing service revenue by 13.9% year-on-year.

Just before the financial report was released, Hong Kong’s largest single-scale intelligent computing center—the China Mobile Global Intelligent Computing Center—opened. This center can significantly enhance high-performance intelligent computing resources in Hong Kong and support training and inference of large models with trillions of parameters.

The investment proportion in computing power for China Telecom and China Unicom is also very high.

China Telecom’s capital expenditure in 2025 is 80.4 billion yuan, which, although less than Mobile’s, includes 20.2 billion yuan invested in computing infrastructure, accounting for about 25%. China Unicom’s total capital expenditure for the year is 54.2 billion yuan, with the proportion of capital expenditure relative to main business revenue decreasing to 16%. While specific computing-related capital expenditure was not disclosed, the financial report states that in 2026, capital expenditure is expected to be around 50 billion yuan, with over 35% allocated to computing investments.

According to China Telecom Chairman Ke Ruiwen, strengthening computing investments can hedge against the impact of tax rate adjustments and help cultivate new growth points during transformation. The company will accelerate Token operations and use AI to improve the efficiency and benefits of existing assets.

Facing the changes in tax rates, China Unicom CFO Li Yuzhuo said the company will accelerate business restructuring, focusing more on the four core areas of “connectivity, computing power, services, and security,” and promote the transformation from a “basic pipeline provider” to a “comprehensive digital service provider.”

Currently, China Mobile’s total intelligent computing capacity (self-built and leased) has reached 92.5 EFLOPS (FP16), enabling full-range computing capabilities from hundreds to tens of thousands of cards; China Telecom’s own and connected intelligent computing capacity has reached 91 EFLOPS; China Unicom’s intelligent computing capacity has reached 45 EFLOPS.

In response to the explosive demand for AI large models, simple network connectivity can no longer meet market needs. In the past, operators were mainly “carriers” of information, investing primarily in pipelines and connections. Now, they are striving to become providers of the “computing foundation” in the era of intelligence.

This article is an exclusive report by Observer.com. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.