Hubei Broadcasting Network announced on the evening of October 28 that it has terminated its joint venture with Wuhan Huaxinxin Equity Investment Group to build the Guanggu smart computing center, according to Sina Finance and 21st Century Business Herald. The stated reason is blunt: the partner failed to deliver the funds required by agreement, closing the book on a computing pivot more than two years in the making.

Data center and skyline illustration
A planned data center campus against the city skyline

The project once carried big ambitions. On June 12, 2024, the board approved a plan for its wholly-owned subsidiary to co-develop the center: 2.5 billion yuan of planned construction investment, computing power of at least 25,000P, built on existing data-center space at the Yangtze Cultural & Creative Industry Park, positioned as AI infrastructure under the "East Data, West Computing" strategy.

But the agreement contained a threshold that was never crossed: Huaxinxin was required to deposit at least 300 million yuan into an escrow account as a condition for the deal to take effect. Per the company's disclosures, the money had still not arrived by April 10, 2026; Hubei Broadcasting issued a formal letter demanding payment within three months, by July 10 at the latest. The letter was signed for on April 21 — and the deposit never came. An equity investor unable to raise 300 million yuan over 24 months said enough about the project's viability.

Timeline of the Guanggu computing center

· Jun 2024: board approves 2.5B-yuan project with at least 25,000P of compute

· Effective condition: partner to escrow no less than 300M yuan

· Apr 10, 2026: funds still absent; formal deadline set for July 10

· Oct 28, 2026: termination announced

The retreat also reflects the company's own strain. Hubei Broadcasting booked revenue of 1.518 billion yuan in 2025, down 4.58%, with a net loss of 1.095 billion yuan; in the first three quarters of 2026 revenue fell 7.92% to 1.046 billion yuan with a 385 million yuan net loss. Compute leasing was meant to be the second growth curve, but that curve depended on outside capital — and without the partner's 300 million yuan, self-funding a 2.5-billion-yuan build was never realistic.

In context, this is not an outlier. Regional computing-center projects across China are facing low utilization and stretched payback periods where customer orders and sustained capital are missing, and the investment fever is visibly cooling. Hubei Broadcasting says it will deepen its existing business while nurturing new tracks through lighter vehicles such as its subsidiary Jiuyun Zhisuan. The lesson for project hopefuls is concrete: without funded capital and real orders, petabytes on a blueprint do not become revenue.