A new analysis points to China continuing to employ a long-standing scheme of regional exploitation, adapting it for the AI era. The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, rich in energy resources and labor, is becoming a key link in building computing infrastructure for AI technologies. Whereas the region once supplied energy and raw materials to the country's eastern industrial centers, observers now report that local resources and Uyghur labor are being directed toward powering data centers and the computing capacity needed for AI development. The study's authors emphasize that this transformation is unfolding against a backdrop of ongoing reports of forced labor and a large-scale surveillance system targeting Uyghurs in the region. Despite international criticism and accusations of human rights violations, Chinese authorities do not comment on these aspects, focusing instead on Xinjiang's technological and economic development. Experts note that this model — 'energy from west to east, computing from east to west' — reflects a repetition of historical patterns of using the region as a resource base, now in a new technological context. In their view, the rapid growth of China's AI industry is closely intertwined with issues of control over Xinjiang's population and territory, raising concern among human rights organizations and analysts monitoring the human rights situation in the region.