At the end of 2022, the emergence of ChatGPT led the development of AIGC (Generative Artificial Intelligence) and caused a significant impact in several fields and industries. At present, artificial intelligence technology has become an important strategic resource for the future development of countries around the world, and the demand for computing power, as the technical guarantee and power engine for the development of artificial intelligence, is growing rapidly.
Hongjing Technology(301396. With years of innovative R&D team building and computing cluster technology accumulation, and in-depth cooperative relations with upstream equipment manufacturers Huawei, Inspur, H3C, etc., SZ) has launched a complete set of solutions and services for the construction of intelligent computing centers, which can continue to provide customers with professional and systematic comprehensive solutions in terms of artificial intelligence applications and computing power needs.
The rapid iteration of large AI models increases the demand for computing power
AIGC's technology base is "large language models", and with the rapid iteration of large models, the required parameters have increased exponentially, taking the GPT model series released by OpenAI as an example: GPT-2 released in 2019 has 1.5 billion parameters, and GPT-3 released in 2020 has 175 billion parameters. The training and inference of each modal intelligent data require the blessing of computing power, and the demand for computing power for large models is reflected in three links: pre-training, inference, and tuning. According to the calculation of Huatai Securities, taking the 100 billion parameter model as an example, the total computing power demand of the three links is about 180,000 PFlop/s-day.
According to the data of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the global computing power scale reached 429EFlops in 2020, with a growth rate of 39%, and it is estimated that the global computing power scale will grow at a rate of more than 50% in the next five years, and the overall scale will reach 3300EFlops by 2025.
As a new productive force in the era of digital economy, computing power plays an important role in promoting scientific and technological progress, digital transformation of industries, and economic and social development. In recent years, the mainland has also accelerated the layout of computing power, and the central and local governments have successively promulgated a number of policies to encourage and support the construction of new information infrastructure such as intelligent computing centers.
At the end of 2023, the National Development and Reform Commission and other five departments issued the "Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of a National Integrated Computing Network" for the In-depth Implementation of the "Eastern Data and Western Computing" Project", which clearly stated that with the high-quality development of computing power empowering high-quality economic development as the main line, the "Eastern Data and Western Computing" project will be promoted in a coordinated manner, forming a cross-regional and cross-departmental development synergy, helping the construction of a cyber power and digital China, and building a digital foundation for Chinese-style modernization.
In October 2023, the "Action Plan for the High-Quality Development of Computing Infrastructure" jointly issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other six departments proposed the main goal of "by 2025, the scale of computing power will exceed 300EFLOPS, the proportion of intelligent computing power will reach 35%, and the balance and coordinated development of computing power in the east and west" will be proposed.
Orient Securities pointed out that the number of domestic model application users represented by Kimi Chat has continued to rise recently, and the domestic model has shown gratifying progress from capability iteration to product promotion. In addition, the National Data Bureau has emphasized the acceleration of digital infrastructure, and Shanghai, Guangdong and other places have issued plans for the field of computing power, and the policies and needs in the field of computing power are highly certain.
Dongguan Securities also said that the rapid iteration and wide application of AI large models will further increase the demand for computing power. Combined with the "Key Points of the Digital Economy in 2024" recently issued by the General Office of the National Development and Reform Commission and the Comprehensive Department of the National Data Administration, it is proposed to accelerate the construction of a national integrated computing power network and comprehensively develop data infrastructure, which shows that the policy level is highly concerned about the development of computing power. As the key engine to activate new quality productivity, the importance of computing power is becoming increasingly prominent.
Computing power-related businesses are expected to contribute to the increase in performance
Hongjing Technology's main business covers three major areas: smart people's livelihood, urban comprehensive management, and smart parks, and has added a new business breakthrough point: computing equipment integration services. In 2023, the company's computing equipment integration service products will achieve revenue of 116 million yuan, accounting for 15.02% of total revenue, and the gross profit margin will be 19.62%. At present, the company provides smart city solutions including smart healthcare, smart education, smart community, smart building, smart government, smart park, intelligent computing center construction, etc., and its main products and services are to provide customers with smart city solutions and operation and maintenance services.
With the rapid development of AI large models and the continuous increase in computing power demand, the integration and technical services of intelligent computing clusters have become more valuable. At the same time, with its own technology accumulation and continuous R&D investment, Hongjing Technology has launched a complete set of solutions and services for the construction of intelligent computing centers, which can provide sales and technical services such as system design, equipment supply, installation and deployment, testing and tuning according to customer needs, and serve the needs of customers in business scenarios such as large model training, inference, and scientific computing.
With more than 20 years of deep cultivation in the industry, Hongjing Technology has been able to provide customers with one-stop solutions for smart cities from pre-sales program consultation, in-sale product technology development and program improvement, project implementation, to after-sales service.
As a national high-tech enterprise, a provincial-level specialized, specialized, and new "little giant" enterprise, Hongjing Technology also has a competitive advantage in R&D strength. Flush iFinD data shows that in 2020~2023, the amount of R&D investment of Hongjing Technology will be 18.977 million yuan, 31.23 million yuan, 43.6198 million yuan, and 50.8726 million yuan respectively, accounting for 3.34%, 4.27%, 5.84%, and 6.60% of operating income respectively, and R&D investment and its proportion in revenue have maintained a growth trend for many years.
As of the end of 2023, Hongjing Technology has 31 invention patents, 14 utility model patents, and 139 software copyrights. The company said that in the future, it will continue to increase R&D investment, pay attention to the development direction of cutting-edge technologies at home and abroad, enrich the landing scenarios of artificial intelligence-related technologies, and build the core competitiveness of enterprise products and technologies.
Recently, the secretary of the board of directors of Hongjing Technology said in response to investors' questions on the interactive platform: "With years of accumulation of relevant technologies and experience in the field of smart cities, the company has cooperated with the company's high-quality upstream resources of the industrial chain to carry out the integration and technical service business of the intelligent computing center on the basis of continuous R&D investment. The company's computing equipment integration services mainly provide customers with servers and supporting storage, network and technical services, and serve customers' needs in business scenarios such as large model training, inference, and scientific computing. In the future, the company will pay close attention to the development of related demand markets, and will deepen the business layout of the company's computing equipment integration services according to market demand and technology development trends, combined with its own business characteristics and customer needs. ”
Looking forward to the future, artificial intelligence is becoming a decisive force to promote human beings into the intelligent era, and began to be widely used in all walks of life, showing considerable business value and huge development potential.