China's growth lost momentum in April, with industrial output cooling and retail sales sinking to over three-year lows as the world's second-biggest economy wrestled with higher energy costs from the Iran war and persistently weak domestic demand

#China#'s value-added industrial output increased by 5.6 percent year on year in the first four months of 2026, official data showed on Monday. In April alone, industrial output grew 4.1 percent year on year, and rose 0.05 percent compared to the previous month, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics. The industrial output is used to measure the activity of large enterprises each with an annual main business turnover of at least 20 million yuan (about 2.92 million U.S. dollars). In terms of sectors, the value added output of the mining sector increased by 5.5 percent year on year in the first four months of the year, while that of the manufacturing sector grew by 5.8 percent. The value-added output of the electricity, heat, gas and water production and supply sectors went up by 4.5 percent, the data showed.

China's large-scale data centers are joining electricity spot trading as virtual power plants for the first time, buying power when it's cheap and curtailing when it's expensive. Bitcoin miners pioneered this model years ago. China is now applying the same logic to its AI buildout.