How many hurdles will computing power development have to overcome in the future?

At present, the digital economy is entering a new stage of development. The role of computing power as a core resource in the digital age is becoming increasingly prominent, and the construction of digital information infrastructure with computing power as the core has been raised to an unprecedented level. Especially under the driving effect of the "East Data West Computing" project, building a high-quality computing power network has become a new direction. So, what stage has my country's computing power industry developed to, and what challenges it will face in the future have also become issues of concern to the industry.

The booming computing industry still faces many challenges

"my country's computing infrastructure construction and application have maintained rapid development, laying a good foundation for the development of the East-West Computing project." At the 8th Information Strategy Forum of the Informatization Hundred People's Forum, Chen Jiachun, a first-level inspector of the Information and Communications Development Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said.

On the basis of building the world's largest optical fiber and mobile communication network, namely the dual-gigabit network, the computing power is also growing rapidly, with an average growth rate of more than 30% in the past five years. By the end of 2021, the total computing power of my country's data centers has exceeded 140Eflops. New data centers, especially large and ultra-large data centers, are gradually shifting to the central and western regions and the periphery of first-tier cities, and a development pattern has basically been formed with coordinated development of core regions such as the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and Chengdu-Chongqing, and coordinated supplementation of central and western regions.

In addition, Yu Xiaohui, president and deputy party secretary of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, pointed out that my country's total computing power reached 135 EFlops in 2020, accounting for about 31% of the world's total, maintaining a high growth rate of 55% (the global growth rate is 16%). my country's intelligent computing power accounted for 3% in 2016 and increased to 41% in 2020. It is expected that in 2023, AI computing power will account for 70%-80% of the new computing power.

As the computing power industry is booming, Zheng Weimin, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a professor at the Department of Computer Science at Tsinghua University, also pointed out that my country's computing power development currently faces three major problems: first, the architecture of domestic supercomputing platforms is diverse, and the workload of application transplantation and tuning is large; second, the ability of domestic supercomputing platforms to support the full-process computing of complex applications needs to be improved; third, the United States is targeting my country's artificial intelligence companies, and they face huge risks of being strangled.

Multi-point efforts to accelerate the development of computing power industry and East-West computing

In response to the challenges of computing power development, Zheng Weimin put forward four suggestions: First, strengthen the research and construction of cross-platform compilation optimization platforms; second, strengthen the research and development of domestic supercomputer HPDA system software; third, it is recommended to define independent artificial intelligence products and introduce measures to encourage the industry to accelerate their use; fourth, strengthen the research and development of the integration of three types of computing systems: HPC, AI and Data.

In addition, Chen Jiachun, a first-level inspector of the Information and Communications Development Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, also put forward three suggestions on the development of my country's computing power industry and East-West computing.

First, accelerate the construction of computing power infrastructure and ensure the diversified supply of computing power resources. Accelerate the construction of a national integrated big data center system, coordinate the layout of computing power resources in the east and west, accelerate the creation of a multi-level computing power facility system with data network collaboration, data cloud collaboration, cloud edge collaboration, and green intelligence, strengthen the intelligent scheduling of computing power, orderly promote the East-West computing project, and continuously guide the computing power of various regions in the east and west.

Second, we need to improve the computing network support capabilities and strengthen the coordinated and integrated development of computing networks. On the one hand, we need to quickly make up for the weak links in the current computing hub network, focus on improving the network capabilities of the Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Gansu and Ningxia regions, launch a number of East Data West Computing optical cable construction projects, and optimize computing network support. On the other hand, we need to gradually establish a computing network coordinated linkage mechanism to promote the effective connection between computing network demand and supply.

Third, we will strengthen innovation-driven and application-enabled development to promote green and inclusive computing power. We will strengthen the demand for computing power applications, lower the threshold for computing power use, enhance the level of computing power application empowerment, and explore the in-depth application of computing power services in innovative application scenarios such as digital government and industrial Internet.

Chen Jiachun emphasized that looking to the future, my country's digital transformation process will continue to accelerate, new technologies and new business models will be accelerated, and computing power will continue to empower thousands of industries and provide new impetus for high-quality economic and social development.