With the maturity of the artificial intelligence industry, especially the outbreak of large models this year, the intelligent computing center has gradually replaced the data center into the public eye, becoming a hot keyword in the market, and the popularity of intelligent computing power continues to rise.
Previously, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology disclosed at a relevant press conference that the total scale of computing power in mainland China currently ranks second in the world, maintaining an annual growth rate of about 30%, and intelligent computing power accounts for more than half of the new computing facilities, becoming a new engine for computing power growth.
Specifically, in China, cloud service providers represented by mobile cloud are constantly promoting the construction of intelligent computing power. At present, China Mobile is building the largest single intelligent computing center in Asia, which is planned to be put into operation in 2024.
This shift in market focus is actually a sign that the prospects of the artificial intelligence industry are becoming brighter.
01 From the data center to the intelligent computing center, why does intelligent computing power stand in the C position?
At the beginning of this year, Chengdu issued the country's first special policy for the computing industry, followed by Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and other cities to follow suit, intelligent computing power construction is not only a matter for enterprises and markets, but also the goal of local and government governments.
Intelligent computing centers have sprung up to replace data centers, and the industrial logic behind them is ushering in fundamental changes.
To put it simply, if data is regarded as the "ingredient" of the digital age, then the data center is equivalent to the "central warehouse", and the intelligent computing center is the "central kitchen". The "ingredients" placed in the "central warehouse" are just "ingredients", and it is only a matter of how much to store and how quickly they are distributed. The "ingredients" placed in the "central kitchen" have many more processes, such as the cleaning and processing of the "ingredients", and finally become a variety of "delicacies" to present to consumers.
The positioning of the two is completely different, and when the intelligent computing center (central kitchen) can replace the data center (central warehouse) and become the mainstream of digital infrastructure, it means that the market demand for data (ingredients) is also completely different.
For example, in today's field of artificial intelligence, large models are a megatrend. The maturity of a large AI model does not rely on the massive data that remains unmoved, but the results obtained by repeated training, fine-tuning, and retraining of the massive data after it has been cleaned, processed, processed, calculated, and distributed.
The burst of intelligent computing power is an inevitable demand for the artificial intelligence industry to reach the stage of large-scale model explosion - the development of AI requires more data for training, and the training process is the process of consuming intelligent computing power.
In other words, intelligent computing power is the basic driving force of the entire artificial intelligence industry, and the essence of its market attention is the result of the maturity of the artificial intelligence industry and the detonation of the market.
02 The "iceberg" behind intelligent computing power
From the perspective of the positioning of the entire industry chain, intelligent computing power involves the upstream and downstream of the artificial intelligence industry, whether it is the pre-training of large models in the upstream or the intelligent application services in the downstream, in fact, it is inseparable from the support of intelligent computing power.
So, how will intelligent computing power develop next? Different from the past, at this stage, with the practice of China Mobile and other manufacturers, the market's cognition of intelligent computing power has a clearer understanding, which is presented at three levels.
1. Serve the AI industry and applications.
In other words, the development of intelligent computing power is not the goal, but the final result is how to drive the development of the artificial intelligence industry. Therefore, the development of intelligent computing power cannot only focus on computing power.
Specifically, it can be seen that the full-stack intelligent computing product system of China Mobile's mobile cloud is divided into three layers: infrastructure (IaaS layer), intelligent computing platform (PaaS layer) and model-as-a-service (MaaS layer), all of which are an important part of the construction of intelligent computing power. Taking the MaaS layer as an example, the mobile cloud focuses on complementing the large model services and platforms in this layer, bringing together high-quality model services from inside and outside China Mobile Group to solve the problem of using intelligent computing power.
Today, many places are building intelligent computing centers, not only for the resource of intelligent computing power, but also for the more important value of supporting the normal operation of local artificial intelligence facilities and scenarios, such as smart cities, intelligent transportation, etc. The construction of intelligent computing power is linked, and its development is bound to drive the development of the entire artificial intelligence industry.
Second, move towards the integration stage of integration and symbiosis.
Intelligent computing power is not only related to AI-related industries, but also connects many new technology fields, such as 5G networks, cloud computing, big data, and the Internet of Things (IoT), to achieve convergence and symbiosis.
Taking China Mobile as an example, as a communications operator, China Mobile is making every effort to promote the deep integration of computing networks, integrate artificial intelligence and computing power into the network, and build an intelligent computing network to fully support the development of artificial intelligence technology to empower thousands of industries.
The essence of computing-network integration is to more efficiently and accurately dispatch computing power requirements to the corresponding resource nodes. At present, the computing network brain proposed by China Mobile provides great help for the scheduling and application of intelligent computing power, which can not only perceive the storage capacity, computing power, transportation capacity and capabilities related to the mobile cloud in the whole domain, build a unified computing network map, but also build an ultra-high-performance scheduler for the unified scheduling of resources, and automatically complete the scheduling of intelligent computing power.
3. Ecological operation is the key capability.
Different from many traditional infrastructure projects, the construction of intelligent computing power is still a long-term project that requires ecological operation. On the one hand, intelligent computing power is a long-term supply relationship for the artificial intelligence industry, and on the other hand, intelligent computing power is driven by the underlying foundation, which involves far more aspects than imagined and needs the support of the industrial ecology.
This year, China Mobile, together with 13 industry partners, released the first platform computing power native "Xinhe" that supports one-click cross-architecture migration of intelligent computing applications in China, solving the practical problem of "one-time application development and cross-core deployment and migration". At the same time, in the future, it can further reduce the cost and complexity of the migration of AI applications to localized chips, laying an ecological foundation for the sustainable development of the AI industry.
How to optimize the structure and system of all aspects, so that more enterprises, institutions and social forces can participate in the formation of ecological operation is the key to achieving sustainable development.
03 How easy is it to play with "intelligent computing"?
According to the China Comprehensive Computing Power Index released by the Academy of Information and Communications Technology, by 2025, the proportion of intelligent computing power in the country will rise from 25.4% this year to 85%. At that time, the artificial intelligence industry will explode with the high penetration of intelligent computing power.
However, to get to that point, you can't just "heap" GPUs. As mentioned earlier, the construction of intelligent computing power itself is a particularly complex long-term project, and there are far more aspects to consider than in the past.
From the perspective of the industry, the construction of intelligent computing power is actually an anchor point for the construction of the foundation of digital China, and whether the construction of intelligent computing power is good or not is related to the development of digital China in the future.
In order to implement the computing network resource layout plan and systematically build a national intelligent computing system, China Mobile has proposed the "N+X" resource system plan to promote the construction of intelligent computing power in an orderly manner. At the same time, China Mobile has also planned and laid out a new infrastructure of "connection + computing power + capability" focusing on the construction of 5G, computing power network and smart middle platform, so as to promote the realization of a computing power network with "ubiquitous network, ubiquitous computing power and ubiquitous intelligence".
No matter from which point of view, the construction of intelligent computing power means that there needs to be a big picture and leadership. In today's China, this is not only a technical issue, but also takes into account the needs of national strategic development to plan the layout, from top-level design to foundation laying, intelligent computing power is related to the foundation of digital China.
In other words, only when the construction of intelligent computing power occupies a leading edge, then the entire artificial intelligence industry in digital China can have the potential and foundation for a high-speed explosion. At this time, the landing of intelligent computing centers across the country is an important signal that the artificial intelligence industry is ushering in an explosion and the construction of digital China is moving towards a deep-water area. The burst of intelligent computing power also means that the era of artificial intelligence is coming.