China has officially broken ground on the world’s most ambitious hydropower project — a massive dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet, with a projected power capacity of 60,000 megawatts, triple that of the iconic Three Gorges Dam.
The announcement, made by Premier Li Qiang on July 19 during a groundbreaking ceremony in the Tibetan city of Nyingchi, marks a monumental milestone in China’s long-standing pursuit of harnessing the vast hydropower potential of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The project is expected to cost 1.2 trillion yuan (US$168 billion) and is poised to reshape the energy landscape across the region and beyond.
The Yarlung Tsangpo River, which courses through southern Tibet before entering India as the Brahmaputra, is the highest major river in China and home to the world’s deepest canyon — plunging over 6,000 metres. With a total length of 2,057 km, it has long been recognized for its immense hydropower potential.
According to a detailed report by the South China Morning Post, the groundwork for this megaproject was laid more than 70 years ago. In 1951, immediately after Tibet’s liberation, the Chinese government launched its first Tibetan scientific expedition — a pioneering mission of over 50 researchers equipped with basic tools like barometers and compasses. The expedition, which lasted nearly three years, generated comprehensive geological and environmental data from the eastern Jinsha River to Mount Everest in the west, and as far south as the Yarlung Tsangpo.
These early explorations laid the scientific foundation for Tibet’s hydropower dreams. Notably, a key contributor was Guan Zhihua, who led the second major expedition to the region in 1973. As a member of the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Guan conducted nine separate studies of the Yarlung Tsangpo, identifying its unparalleled potential.
The momentum was interrupted by national upheavals — the Great Leap Forward, the Dalai Lama’s flight, the Sino-Indian War, and domestic political struggles. It wasn’t until 1972 that research resumed in earnest under CAS leadership. In the following decades, over a dozen potential hydropower sites were identified along the Yarlung Tsangpo’s main course.
By 1980, China had launched a nationwide hydropower survey, followed by proposed projects such as a 16km water diversion tunnel and underground power stations — radical ideas at the time. In a 1997 article, CAS posed a provocative question: “Can Tibet build the world’s largest hydropower station?” That hypothetical is now becoming reality.
In preparation for the dam’s energy output, China has also approved the Tibet-Guangdong DC Project — an ultra-high voltage direct current (±800 kilovolt) transmission line that will transport clean energy from Tibet to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area.
The Yarlung Tsangpo was once the last major undammed river in China. That status changed with the 2015 commissioning of the Zangmu hydropower station, currently the largest in Tibet, though its capacity of 510MW is dwarfed by the newly launched project.
Much of the power generated by the Yarlung Tsangpo dam will be exported to southeast China, but the project also aims to meet local energy needs in Tibet. With funding no longer a constraint, the once-theoretical dreams of researchers like Guan and his colleague Chen Chuanyou — who envisioned water tunnels and underground power stations decades ago — are finally being realized, albeit on a far grander scale.
As construction ramps up in the coming months, China’s boldest energy infrastructure project is set to redefine not only Tibetan development but also regional geopolitics and environmental discourse.
