(Yicai) Sept. 11 -- Shares of Hongxin Electronics Technology Group moved up after the Chinese maker of flexible printed circuit boards said it will participate in building four artificial intelligence computing hubs, including two in northwestern China which is becoming a strategic location for data centers.

Hongxin's stock price [SHE: 300657] closed 1.8 percent higher at CNY20.15 (USD2.80) after surging by 5.8 percent intraday.

The company will join hands with a local branch of China Mobile and other partners to invest in a computing hub with a capacity of over 3,000 petaflops in Qingyang in Gansu province, the Xiamen-based supplier said in a statement recently without disclosing any financial details about the plan.

Moreover, Hongxin and China Telecom, another major wireless carrier, will build another 2,000-petaflop center in the same key city for China's "east-data-west-computing project," designed to balance development of different regions by sending data to the less developed western regions for storage and analysis.

The projects should spur local ecosystem development in Qingyang and provide mall and medium-sized firms in eastern regions with low-cost and high-efficiency services of AI data training and computing power.

The Hongxin-China Mobile partnership will also build another AI computing center in 

Changsha, the capital of central Hunan province, with a capacity of 200 petaflops. Meanwhile, the Hongxin-China Telecom joint venture will join hands to establish a 300-petaflop facility in the southeastern city of Xiamen, according to the announcement.

Some of the other project participants include the municipal government of Qingyang, artificial intelligence chipmaker Enflame Technology, AI software firm Wondershare Technology Group, and photo editor developer Meitu. 

Through the investment, Hongxin will expand its business to high-value fields such as solutions that integrate both software and hardware as well as the operation of computing systems instead of just manufacturing hardware, it said.

Editor: Emmi Laine