Wuhan Future City in the Optics Valley of China. [Photo/WeChat account of Optics Valley of China]

On Jan 8, China Mobile (Wuhan) Smart Computing Center officially commenced operation in Wuhan Future City, located in the East Lake High-tech Development Zone (also known as Optics Valley of China, or OVC).

This is the first regional center of China Mobile to have been established and is now operational. It serves the provinces of Hunan, Hubei, and Jiangxi provinces, with a current service capacity of 1,500 Pflops. By the end of this year, the center will expand to 6,800 Pflops, becoming the largest smart computing center in Central China.

Currently, data has become a new factor of production for the center, and AI has become a new production tool. Data shows that for every 1 yuan ($0.14) invested in the computing power industry, it can generate an average economic output of 3-4 yuan.

In 2024, the Hubei branch of China Mobile has witnessed a significant increase in orders for AI computing services. Over 100 enterprises have made on-site reservations for smart computing services, covering various industries such as autonomous driving, intelligent manufacturing, drug research and development, weather forecasting, engineering design, and natural language processing.

The interior of the China Mobile (Wuhan) Smart Computing Center. [Photo/WeChat account of Optics Valley of China]

In recent years, with the rapid development of AI technology, there has been a surge in demand for large-scale parallel computing in areas such as image recognition, natural language processing, and deep learning, all of which require more GPU devices to provide support.

Currently, there is a growing demand for AI computing power in Hubei's industries, such as smart cities, intelligent manufacturing, and biomedicine. In addition to providing basic computing services, China Mobile will also establish a multimodal large-scale AI training platform that allows students in universities and research institutes to enjoy smart computing services.