Review of the computing power network in 2021: The computing power is surging, and the power is growing together

The sun and the moon are moving forward, the rhythm of the year is renewed; we bid farewell to 2021 and welcome 2022. As an important part of information infrastructure, computing power services are becoming a new point of business application in the new era. Computing power has become a new driving force to support the continuous and in-depth development of the digital economy, enabling the digital transformation and upgrading of all walks of life.

In 2021, the development of computing power at home and abroad is showing a surging trend and is also accelerating into reality. The three major domestic operators have also increased their investment in computing power network construction, and this can be seen from China Mobile's "strong network and strong computing", China Telecom's cloud-edge collaboration to consolidate the computing power cloud network foundation, and China Unicom's "first computing power engine" built.

But it is worth noting that under the surge of computing power, "undercurrents" are also surging. The computing power network faces many challenges in technology, industry and ecology. In the future, operators should increase cooperation with industry, academia and research circles. "Unity leads to expansion" will be the key to the success of the computing power network.

As computing power surges, a "dark tide" also surges

For a long time, improving computing power has been a key direction of technological layout in various countries and an important topic of international competition. Countries have invested massive amounts of "people, money and materials" to strive for the upstream stage of industrial chain development.

To promote the development of the digital economy, my country has successively introduced a series of measures to accelerate the construction of a new infrastructure system with computing power and networks as the core.

In May 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other four departments jointly issued the "Implementation Plan for the Computing Hub of the National Integrated Big Data Center Collaborative Innovation System", which clearly proposed the layout of national hub nodes in the national computing power network and launched the implementation of the "East Data West Computing" project; in July 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Three-Year Action Plan for the Development of New Data Centers (2021-2023)", which plans to basically form a new data center development pattern with a reasonable layout, advanced technology, green and low-carbon, and computing power scale that is compatible with the growth of the digital economy in three years.

This series of policies and measures are highly strategic, leading and innovative, and once again raise the importance of computing infrastructure to a new level. Wang Endong, a computer expert and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, emphasized in an interview with the media that relevant computing companies need to conscientiously implement the overall layout of the national development of computing hubs, focus on the nine key tasks of national hub node construction, and actively participate in the construction of new infrastructure in terms of computing technology innovation, computing hub platform construction, computing service level improvement, and computing industry ecological chain construction.

The computing power network is surging, with unlimited prospects, but the undercurrent is also somewhat "surging". Experts from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology pointed out that unified computing power services and computing network integration are the current difficulties and pain points. First, forward-looking research should be carried out on technology and standards, and then a unified technology verification and application innovation platform should be built. Finally, the computing network integration evaluation system can be integrated to give full play to the advantages of my country's large-scale deployment of network infrastructure.

In order to eliminate the above pain points, Academician Wang Endong also put forward three suggestions for the next development of the computing network:

First, the construction and layout of the computing network should form effective coordination with the power grid and urban infrastructure. "Where the application is, the computing network covers it." It is necessary to ensure sufficient computing power for the near-line and high-concurrency application needs in the eastern region, and to give full play to the advantages of abundant power resources and low natural temperature in the western region, and appropriately layout the computing network nodes and intelligent computing centers. In addition, "Eastern Data" must also consider the pressure of "West-to-East Power Transmission", and "Western Computing" must consider the backbone network carrying capacity of "Eastern Data Westward Transmission".

Secondly, while ensuring the technological advancement, the computing network also needs to be appropriately planned and laid out in advance to support the high-quality development of the digital economy. The construction of the computing network belongs to the category of new infrastructure and has many potential social benefits that cannot be quantified and are beyond economic benefits.

Finally, we should pay attention to the division of labor in the industrial chain and the coordination between upstream and downstream. Each link needs professional division of labor and more collaboration to meet the overall needs of intensive, green and interconnected.

Operators' computing power "gathers" to gain strength

According to estimates by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology: From the perspective of input-output, the scale of my country's computing power industry reached 2 trillion yuan in 2020, directly driving economic output of 1.7 trillion yuan and indirectly driving economic output of 6.3 trillion yuan. That is, for every 1 yuan invested in the computing power industry, it will drive an average of 3-4 yuan of economic output.

As the main body of digital information infrastructure, operators are at the forefront of computing network construction. "Computing network is centered on computing and based on the network," said the vice president of China Mobile. "Operators have both computing and network, and China Mobile will achieve 'strong network and strong computing'." China Mobile will build a new information infrastructure that integrates multiple elements such as network, cloud, data, intelligence, security, edge, terminal, and chain (ABCDNETS) with computing power as the center and network as the foundation.

In order to realize the basic demand of computing power like water and electricity, access at one point and use it immediately, achieve social-level services, and form the vision of ubiquitous computing power, ubiquitous network and all-encompassing intelligence, China Mobile divides the development of computing power network into three stages: The 14th Five-Year Plan stage will be the starting stage of its computing power network development, with the main goal of achieving ubiquitous collaboration of one-stop service and collaborative operation; it will then enter the development stage, which is the integrated and unified stage of integrated services and unified operations; and after that it will enter the leapfrog stage, which is the endogenous stage of integrated services and model innovation.

"Computing power runs through China Telecom's cloud-network integration. Just like the blood flowing in the cloud network, it is essential for the operation of the entire body." Chen Yunqing, deputy director of the Research Institute of China Telecom Co., Ltd., pointed out that the overall idea of ​​China Telecom's computing power network is to further combine multi-level computing power nodes such as edge computing and cloud computing with the network, realize resource supply under cloud-network integration, and provide users with the best services and operational guarantees.

At present, China Telecom will further improve the "2+4+31+X+O" cloud and big data center layout. In fact, China Telecom Research Institute has started research on computing power networks since 2019, and has joined forces with mainstream manufacturers in the industry to explore how to achieve joint optimization of multiple types of resources such as computing, storage, and networks, and promote computing power networks from three aspects. First, incorporate the research on computing power network technology into the broad scope of 6G and future network technology research, and innovatively propose a medium- and long-term network evolution system and key technology research. Secondly, it will work closely with all parties in the industry to jointly study and solve the core problems encountered in the research of computing power network technology, such as computing power measurement and identification. Finally, China Telecom Research Institute will jointly carry out pilot work on computing power network technology with pilot provinces, that is, to carry out pilot verification work in advance according to simplified technical solutions, promote the maturity of related systems and technologies, and bring commercial value as soon as possible.

China Unicom aims to build a computing network into the "first computing engine" for the digital economy, and has given a specific implementation plan. As one of the key directions of China Unicom's CUBE-Net3.0, Unicom has proposed a computing network that is "extreme, flexible, intelligent, and simple". At present, China Unicom has carried out practice in four provinces and cities, including Beijing, Hebei, Shandong, and Guangdong, and has achieved phased results.

China Unicom Deputy General Manager Mai Yanzhou revealed that in the future, Unicom will promote the construction of computing power network from four aspects: strengthen the computing network collaborative orchestration capabilities and computing network capability packaging construction, and accelerate the construction of a cloud-network-edge integrated capability open scheduling system; optimize the layout to form a "5+4+31+X" new data center pattern; build an all-optical network base, improve the public Internet with dual cores of users and computing power, support the industrial Internet of multi-cloud ecology, and the local comprehensive bearer network for edge computing power access; continue to promote the evolution of network technology, accelerate the application and deployment of IPv6+ innovative technologies such as SRv6, develop computing network integrated innovative service products, and form differentiated computing power network product advantages.

It is worth noting that as a new stage of cloud-network integration development, computing power networks face many challenges in technology, industry and ecology. Cross-domain architectures need to be integrated; the industry has different opinions on computing power networks; it brings great challenges to the existing industrial ecology and will reconstruct and upgrade the industrial value chain.

A single flower does not make spring, but a hundred flowers in full bloom make the garden full of spring. Therefore, for operators, how to work together with partners from all walks of life in industry, academia, and research to increase R&D efforts and form industrial synergy will be the key to the success of computing power networks.