Reporter Ye Wei
Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Three-year Action Plan for the Development of New Data Centers (2021-2023)", which clearly states that in three years, a new data center development pattern with reasonable layout, advanced technology, green and low carbon, and the scale of computing power is compatible with the growth of digital economy will be basically formed.
Zhang Huan, deputy director of the Policy and Standards Division of the Department of Information and Communication Development of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that the Action Plan has made an overall plan for the future development of data centers, not only emphasizing that data centers should better empower the application of all walks of life, but also emphasizing that data centers should take the road of green and energy-saving development.
Why the development of new data centers
The new data center refers to a new type of infrastructure that is oriented to supporting economic and social digital transformation, intelligent upgrading, and integration and innovation, and is driven by the application needs of 5G, industrial Internet, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, bringing together multiple data resources, using green and low-carbon technologies, having safe and reliable capabilities, providing efficient computing power services, empowering thousands of industries to apply, and integrating and developing with networks and cloud computing.
Zhang Huan said that there have been many new changes in the functional characteristics of the current data center. On the one hand, data center functions are evolving from storing data to processing and accumulating data; on the other hand, new data centers have shown advantages and characteristics in network collaboration, data security, and cloud processing. For example, data centers and networks are further integrated to achieve synergy and facilitate the scheduling of computing power between different regions and different locations.
"With the rapid popularization and application of new technologies such as 5G, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things, the total amount of data in the whole society has exploded, and the demand for data storage, computing, transmission and application has increased significantly, and data centers have become an important new type of infrastructure supporting the 'cloud to use data to empower intelligence' in various industries." Dr. Liang Peng, an associate researcher at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, told reporters that the introduction of the Action Plan is to guide the evolution of traditional data centers to new data centers with high technology, high computing power, high energy efficiency and high security characteristics.
Chang Lei, industrial research manager of Peking University Science and Technology Park, said that at present, there are structural excesses, low utilization rates, and poor layout and construction in the domestic data center industry, and the Action Plan aims to guide the industry to develop in a high-quality direction and better support the new generation of information technology to accelerate innovation.
First proposed
Carry out the evaluation of computing power and efficiency
From the perspective of specific targets, the Action Plan proposes that by the end of 2021, the average utilization rate of national data centers will strive to increase to more than 55%, the final strength will exceed 120 EFLOPS, and the PUE of new large and above data centers will be reduced to less than 1.35; by the end of 2023, the average annual growth rate of the national data center rack scale will remain at about 20%, the average utilization rate will strive to increase to more than 60%, and the final strength will exceed 200 EFLOPS, and the proportion of high-performance computing power will reach 10%.
In order to achieve the above goals, the Action Plan clarifies six special actions, including 20 specific tasks and 6 projects, including 20 specific tasks and 6 projects, such as the optimization of the layout of the new data center construction, the action of upgrading the network quality, the action of improving the computing power, the action of strengthening the stability of the industrial chain, the action of green and low-carbon development, and the action of safety and reliability, and strives to promote the development of the new data center.
"The Action Plan focuses on promoting the construction of new data centers from the aspects of data center layout, network, energy consumption, computing power, data, industrial chain, and security guarantees. The biggest highlight of the policy is that, in view of the problems of unreasonable layout, uneven development, insufficient sharing, single service and low energy efficiency of China's computing power infrastructure, it is proposed for the first time to carry out the evaluation of computing power. Liang Peng said that the introduction of the computing power index EFLOPS to evaluate the quality of data center development aims to guide the data center from extensive rack scale growth to high-quality development of computing power, better promote the quality and efficiency change of data center, and ensure the healthy development of computing power infrastructure construction.
Chang Lei said that in order to scientifically measure the development level of the data center industry, in addition to the first time to propose the evaluation of computing power, the Action Plan also strengthens the indicators that reflect the high-quality development of data centers, such as the utilization rate of new data centers, the scale of computing power, the level of energy efficiency, and the network latency, weakens the indicators of data center scale that reflect the volume, and accelerates the transformation of volume advantages into quality advantages.
Take the road of green and low-carbon development
The Action Plan places special emphasis on the green and low-carbon development path of efficient, clean, intensive and circular new data centers. Zhang Huan said that the data center is facing the challenge of green and low-carbon transformation, the data center is not particularly high in the proportion of total energy consumption, but it is a large facility with very concentrated energy consumption, tens of thousands of machine positions are placed together, and the energy consumption is very large.
"The annual electricity consumption of China's data centers accounts for about 2% of the total electricity consumption of the whole society, and it is still growing rapidly." Liang Peng said that in order to ensure the realization of carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals, the data center must take the road of green energy-saving development in the future, including the application of new energy-saving technologies, the formulation of standards to make better guidance, the implementation of green data center evaluation work, etc., to deal with the relationship between development and energy conservation.
How to promote the development of new data centers in the direction of green and low carbon? Liang Peng suggested that the first is to strengthen the understanding of China's data center industry in clean energy substitution. As of October 2020, 33 global data center companies have pledged to use 100% renewable energy, while domestic leaders have not yet made similar commitments. The second is to improve the level of development and utilization of clean energy in the western region. It is estimated that the northwest region of China abandons about 12.5 billion kWh of wind and light each year, and if large data centers are built nearby by relying on power plants and power grid layouts in these places, 3.75 million tons of standard coal can be saved every year. The third is to strictly prohibit Bitcoin "mining".
Chang Lei said that in view of the current data center energy consumption problem is very prominent, in the context of carbon peaking, carbon neutrality, the industry should accelerate the application of advanced green technology products, improve the level of efficient and clean use of energy, optimize green management capabilities and transform and upgrade "old and small" data centers, etc., to promote the coordinated development of the entire industry.