China Unicom to up computing network

Chen Zhongyue, chairman of China Unicom, speaks at the China International Big Data Industry Expo 2024 in Guiyang, Guizhou province, on Thursday. [Photo provided to China Daily]

China Unicom will step up efforts to accelerate the construction of intelligent computing infrastructure, build the next-generation internet and achieve breakthroughs in the key technologies of big data and large language models or LLMs, as part of its broader push to bolster the high-quality development of the digital economy.

Chen Zhongyue, chairman of the company, said Guizhou province has emerged as a computing power center as it has realized the coordinated layout and development of computing power, network carrying power and electric power.

Chen made the remarks during the three-day China International Big Data Industry Expo 2024 that will conclude on Friday in Guiyang, capital of Guizhou.

The internet is now rapidly advancing toward the next-generation internet, namely the intelligent computing network, given that there is surging demand for computing power along with the rapid development of LLMs, he noted.

He emphasized that China Unicom is taking steps to build new types of infrastructure, facilitate the development of new-generation wireless communication technology, speed up the construction of intelligent computing network as well as promote the efficient and safe circulation and use of data by leveraging key technologies, including privacy computing, blockchain, quantum computing and encryption technology.

The company is intensifying efforts to implement the artificial intelligence-plus strategy, upgrade its LLM called Yuanjing, and speed up the application of AI models in a wider range of fields, in a bid to better drive the development of big data and AI.

The top executive also said China Unicom has developed 35 industry-specific Yuanjing models, which have benefited urban governance, economic operations, information consumption and industrial manufacturing.

The company will step up investment in Guizhou, build and operate new infrastructure and provide more intelligent, convenient digital services, he said.

China is constructing new information infrastructure and promoting the research, development and application of cutting-edge technologies like 6G, next-generation internet and quantum communications.

Experts said computing power is a vital part of the new quality productive forces, and is widely regarded as a significant foundation for bolstering the development of the digital economy. It is also a new growth engine that can unleash the potential of data as a factor of production.

Gao Wen, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said the rapid development and application of AI-powered LLMs in various fields necessitates higher computing power. He called for efforts to accelerate building of data infrastructure like computing power networks and data centers.

Gao said China's computing power industry has grown at an annual average rate of more than 10 percent, with its scale expected to surpass that of the United States in the near future.

Data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, a Beijing-based think tank, showed that the country's total computing power reached 230 EFLOPS, ranking second globally after the US. EFLOPS is a unit of the speed of computer systems, equal to 1 quintillion floating-point operations a second.

Liu Yulin, director of the China Internet Network Information Center, said the speedy growth of the digital economy driven by AI has created strong demand for digital infrastructure like information network, data centers and computing power, which will advance the building of a national computing power network.

China has 196 national green data centers. The total number of standard racks in use at data centers nationwide has exceeded 8.1 million, Liu said.

China has launched a megaproject involving the construction of eight national computing hubs and 10 national data center clusters in 2022. Guizhou is among eight national computing hubs.