Guiyang, 27 May (Xinhua) -- Question: China's computing power has risen in terms of "quantity" and "quality" to help high-quality development
Xinhua News Agency reporters Meng Jia and Pan Dexin
In the era of digital economy, data has become a key factor of production, and computing power is the productivity that releases this key factor of production.
The 2023 China International Big Data Industry Expo (referred to as the "Data Expo") opened in Guiyang, Guizhou Province on the 26th, with the annual theme of "Integration of Data and Reality, Enlightenment of the Future", and a number of high-end dialogues and professional forums focused on the development of computing power in China.
On May 26, the 2023 China International Big Data Industry Expo opened. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Ou Dongqu
Industry insiders said that the increasingly high-quality computing power has provided important impetus and support for the high-quality development of China's economy and society.
In recent years, China's computing power is achieving a two-way improvement in both "quantity" and "quality": the total scale of computing power has leapt to the second in the world; The strategy of "counting from east to west" continues to optimize the pattern of computing power; "Green computing" accelerates evolution.
In the exhibition area of the Data Expo, Baidu's generative artificial intelligence products such as "Wen Xin Yiyan" attracted many visitors to experience. Behind the recent hot big language model, it is the rapid growth of China's computing power scale.
According to the "China Computing Power Development Index White Paper (2022)" released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, by the end of 2021, the total size of data center racks in use in China exceeded 5.2 million standard racks, with an average shelf rate of more than 55%, and the scale of data center servers in use reached 19 million units, with a storage capacity of 800 exabytes. China's computing power has reached 202EFlops, accounting for 33% of the global computing power.
On May 26, participants visited the venue of the "Data Expo". Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Liu Xuan
"Computing power is becoming an important indicator to measure the level of national economic and social development." Huang Xianqiong, second-level inspector of the Information and Communication Development Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said at the meeting that promoting the improvement of the overall computing power level is of great significance to enhancing the country's comprehensive strength and building new advantages in national competitiveness.
As the physical bearer of computing power, the data center is the "base" for storing, processing, and computing data, playing a role in smoothing the computing power channel and releasing the potential of data elements.
Many places in China are actively planning to build data centers, but they are also facing the problems of saturation of first-tier cities in the east and low utilization in the central and western regions.
The "14th Five-Year Plan" clearly points out that the construction of a national integrated big data center system will be accelerated, the overall intelligent scheduling of computing power will be strengthened, and a number of national hub nodes and big data center clusters will be built. This has clarified the direction for the development of China's computing power industry.
In order to optimize the layout of national computing power resources, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Cyberspace Administration of the Central Committee, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the National Energy Administration jointly issued a notice in 2022, agreeing to start the construction of national computing power hub nodes in 8 places, including Beijing-Tianjin Wing, Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Chengdu-Chongqing, Inner Mongolia, Guizhou, Gansu, and Ningxia, and planned 10 national data center clusters.
So far, the overall layout design of the national integrated big data center system has been completed, and the "East Data and West Calculation" project has been fully launched.
On May 26th, children visited a robot to demonstrate the plugging, plugging and assembly of common parts at the Expo Pavilion. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Yang Wenbin
With the advantages of stable geology, cool climate and cheap electricity prices, Guizhou, China's first big data comprehensive pilot zone, currently has 37 data centers in operation and under construction, including data centers such as Apple, Huawei, Tencent, and China Sky Eye (FAST).
According to estimates, compared with other places, Guiyang City and Gui'an New Area can save 450,000 yuan in electricity bills per 100,000 servers per day, and 165 million yuan a year.
With the help of this year's data expo platform, the "'East Data and West Computing' Industry Cooperation Conference - Guiyang Big Data Science and Technology Innovation City and Server Industry Chain Investment Promotion Activity" completed the signing of 22 projects, covering data center construction, server production, computing power sharing and other fields.
Shenzhen and Guizhou signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement to jointly promote the coordinated development of computing power in the implementation of "East Data and West Computing". The organizers of the investment promotion event believe that the cooperation will effectively promote the balance of supply and demand of computing power in Guizhou Province and Shenzhen, the safe and smooth flow of data elements, and create new advantages in the digital economy.
Hu Angang, dean of the Institute of National Conditions of Tsinghua University, said in an interview that the "East Data and West Calculation" project will enable the East, China and the West and the whole country to achieve a new pattern of mutual benefit and win-win results.
On May 26, visitors experienced an unmanned perspective through VR equipment in the exhibition hall of the data expo. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Tao Liang
Under the guidance of the "dual carbon" goal, it is crucial to reduce computing energy consumption and promote "green computing", and the energy-saving technology and energy-saving level of data centers are constantly improving.
According to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, in recent years, the power usage performance (PUE) of China's data centers has continued to decline, and the PUE of advanced green data centers in the industry has been reduced to about 1.1, reaching the world's advanced level.
At the data expo, China Power Engineering Consulting Group Co., Ltd. demonstrated its exploration of "digital energy integration to create a new model of green and low-carbon development of computing grid power grid".
Luo Bixiong, secretary of the party committee and chairman of the company, introduced that the company proposed an integrated solution of "source, grid, load and storage" that integrates and interacts with multiple elements such as "wind power, photovoltaic, hydropower, energy storage, and computing power load" to provide long-term, stable and low-cost green power for the big data industry, "efficiently transform 'watts' into 'bits', and help the green and sustainable development of the computing power industry".
A series of documents such as the Three-Year Action Plan for the Development of New Data Centers (2021-2023) and the 14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Digital Economy have made arrangements for promoting the construction of green digital centers, including "accelerating the energy-saving transformation of data centers and continuously improving the level of renewable energy utilization of data centers" and "by the end of 2023, the PUE of new large and above data centers will be reduced to less than 1.3".
The increase in computing power "quantity" and "quality" has a significant driving effect on the improvement of the digital economy and GDP. According to the "2021-2022 Global Computing Power Index Assessment Report", for every 1 point increase in the computing power index, the country's digital economy and GDP will increase by 3.5‰ and 1.8‰ respectively, and this trend is expected to continue from 2021 to 2025.
130 million times per second, which is the computing power service that Guiyang Guian Supercomputing Center (hereinafter referred to as Guian Supercomputing Center) can provide.
The multi-cloud heterogeneous computing power network resource scheduling platform equipped by the Gui'an Supercomputing Center can link computing power resources in and outside the province to open up cross-industry, cross-region, and cross-level computing power channels. At present, the Gui'an Supercomputing Center has transmitted about 16 million computing power to Shenzhen, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan and other places.
"We have provided cloud rendering computing power service support for many films and animations such as "Shuimen Bridge of Changjin Lake", "The Wandering Earth 2" and "The Three-Body Problem"." Peng Benqian, head of the technology research and development department of the Gui'an Supercomputing Center, said that the center can also provide high-performance computing power support for many industries such as biomedicine, astronomy and meteorology, artificial intelligence, and building disaster resistance.
The rapid development of computing power not only brings great significance to the strengthening, optimizing and expanding the digital economy and expanding the new space for economic development, but also comprehensively empowers people's lives to be intelligent, digital, and convenient.
Have hundreds of millions of medical health content written or certified by medical experts; Realize remote consultation and ward rounds, so that ordinary people can seek medical treatment at their doorstep; More than 300 million health services per month... The "Internet + Specialty Construction" platform built by Guiyang Langma Information Technology Co., Ltd., a local "big data + medical" enterprise in Guiyang, efficiently utilizes high-quality medical resources and brings help to grassroots medical institutions.
"As China's digital transformation continues to accelerate, new technologies and new formats accelerate iteration, computing power will continue to empower thousands of industries and provide new momentum for high-quality economic and social development." Huang Xianqiong said. (Contributors: Yao Yuxuan, Wang Siyuan)