On September 12th, 2025, it was reported that Xu Hao, the chairman of Cloud Guizhou Big Data (Group), has been taken down. Xu Hao was a former subordinate of Chen Min’er who once governed Guizhou. During Chen Min’er’s time in office in Guizhou, he transformed Guizhou Big Data into a “political achievement project” and gained support from the Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping. In recent years, numerous high-ranking officials in Guizhou related to big data projects have been implicated in corruption and taken down.
The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Chinese Communist Party cited official Guizhou news on September 12th, stating that Xu Hao, the Party Secretary and Chairman of Cloud Guizhou Big Data (Group) Co., Ltd. is “suspected of serious violations of discipline and law” and is currently under investigation.
Public records show that Xu Hao was born in September 1968 in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, and has worked in Guiyang, Guizhou Province for a long time. He has held positions such as Deputy District Head of Baiyun District in Guiyang, Director of the Municipal Economic and Trade Commission, Chairman and Party Secretary of the Municipal Industrial Investment (Group) Co., Ltd., Deputy Secretary and Director of the Party Working Committee of Guiyang National High-tech Industrial Development Zone, and more. In January 2015, Xu Hao was appointed as the Deputy Mayor of Guiyang, and in January 2018, he became a member of the Standing Committee of the Guiyang Municipal Committee and Executive Deputy Mayor. In January 2021, Xu Hao took over as the Party Secretary and Chairman of Guizhou Travel Investment Group. In December 2023, he assumed the position of Party Secretary and Chairman of Cloud Guizhou.
Cloud Guizhou was formally established in February 2018, with registered capital of 1.7 billion yuan. It is a large-scale state-owned enterprise approved for establishment by the Guizhou provincial government. The company claims to be dedicated to serving the province’s big data strategic actions and the construction of the national Big Data (Guizhou) Comprehensive Experimental Zone.
Xu Hao was a former subordinate of Chen Min’er when he governed Guizhou, and Chen Min’er is known as a close ally of Xi Jinping. In February 2012, Chen Min’er was appointed as the Deputy Secretary of the Guizhou Provincial Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, and in January 2013, he became the Governor of Guizhou Province. On July 31, 2015, he was appointed as the Secretary of the Guizhou Provincial Committee and remained in that position until he was transferred to Chongqing on July 15, 2017. During Chen Min’er’s tenure in Guizhou, Xu Hao held positions such as Director of the Management Committee of the Guiyang National High-tech Industrial Development Zone and Deputy Mayor of Guiyang.
Over the past year, corruption scandals have unfolded in Guizhou’s official circles, particularly in the area of big data, which was once praised by Xi Jinping. The first two directors of the Guizhou Provincial Big Data Development Administration, several senior executives of big data state-owned enterprises, as well as four consecutive mayors of Guiyang, the deputy mayor in charge of big data in Guiyang, and the top leaders of the Guian New Area have all been taken down.
Among them, Liu Lan, the fourth-ranking official in the Guiyang City Government and responsible for big data work, was taken down while in office on February 26th. Jinyaping, the former director of the Guizhou Provincial Big Data Development Administration who retired four months ago, was officially announced to have fallen on February 24th. Yang Yunyong, the general manager of Guizhou Calc Tech Company, fell on April 3rd. Ma Ningyu, the former mayor of Guiyang, was taken down on August 6, 2024. Ma Ningyu was the first director of the Guizhou Provincial Big Data Development Administration.
Guizhou Big Data was a “political achievement project” initiated by Chen Min’er when he was in Guizhou. During Chen Min’er’s five-year term in Guizhou, he heavily promoted big data initiatives. In 2014, Guizhou established the Big Data Industry Development Leading Group, with then-Governor Chen Min’er as the head of the group. Ma Ningyu was highly valued and promoted by Chen Min’er during his tenure as Governor and Provincial Secretary and pushed for the establishment of the first national-level big data comprehensive experimental zone under the Communist Party in Guizhou. In February 2017, Ma Ningyu was appointed as the first director of the Guizhou Provincial Big Data Development Administration.
Jing Yaping served as Ma Ningyu’s deputy from 2016 to 2019 at the Guizhou Provincial Big Data Development Administration and took over as director in 2021. According to the Guizhou Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection, the 61-year-old Jing Yaping was accused of engaging in power-for-money exchanges, illegal acceptance of huge sums of money, and even using government servers for Bitcoin mining, extracting 327 bitcoins, involving a significant amount of money. Based on market prices, the bitcoins she possessed were roughly equivalent to around 270 million yuan.
Xi Jinping once supported Guizhou’s “big data development” during the National People’s Congress in 2014. In June 2015, when Xi inspected Guiyang, he conducted research at the Guiyang Big Data Application Exhibition Center, stating that “developing big data in Guizhou does make sense.”
Following the exposure of corruption in Guizhou’s big data sector, Xi Jinping visited the Southeastern region of Guizhou and Guiyang City for two days in March of this year. This was his third visit to Guizhou since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012. However, unlike on his previous two visits, he did not inspect the big data industry and shortened his stay from three days to two.
Current affairs commentator Li Lin once commented that the widespread corruption in Guizhou’s big data sector proves that the political achievement project of Chen Min’er’s “failed miserably” and directly contradicts Xi Jinping, who is sometimes referred to as the “Emperor of Unfinished Projects.” Therefore, Xi did not want to investigate the big data industry further.
After Chen Min’er left Guizhou, the Guizhou big data industry came under the control of two party secretaries, Sun Zhigang and Shen Yiqin. Sun Zhigang stepped back from the spotlight and in October of last year, he was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for taking bribes amounting to over 813 million yuan.