With the comprehensive digital transformation of economy and society, especially the rapid rise of 5G, big data, artificial intelligence and other technologies and applications, the era of computing power has been fully opened. Today, computing power has become an important force to boost the vigorous development of digital economy.
In 2021, computing power has attracted much attention, and the supporting role of network on computing power has become increasingly prominent. The integration of computing power and network has become the general trend. Looking forward to 2022, the construction of new data centers, intelligent computing centers and other computing facilities will be accelerated, digital network collaboration, computing network integration and cloud network integration will continue to be promoted, and the computing efficiency level of the whole society will continue to improve, enabling high-quality economic and social development.
Computing power drives the future
The value of computing power has become increasingly prominent. Wu Hequan, academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, pointed out that computing power has become the strategic choice of major countries in the world. The computing power era has opened up greater development space for digital industrialization and industrial digitization. Zheng Weimin, academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, believes that the computing economy has become a new focus of global strategic competition.
In 2021, "computing power" is a hot word. Especially with computing power writing into the national policy, more and more industries and enterprises vigorously embrace computing power, and the development of computing power industry has entered the fast lane.
In July 2021, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially released The Three-Year Action Plan for the Development of New Data Center (2021-2023) (hereinafter referred to as The Action Plan), which clearly pointed out that the data center is developing in the direction of high technology, high computing power, high energy efficiency and high security. It is particularly worth mentioning that The Action Plan takes computing power as an important indicator to measure the development of data center for the first time, puts forward clear requirements for the development goal of computing power of data center, and emphasizes the need to build a new intelligent computing ecosystem.
In November 2021, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially released The Development of Information and Communication Industry in the 14th Five-year Plan Period, which requires accelerating the construction and formation of a new digital infrastructure system with data and computing facilities as the core, and forming a multi-level computing infrastructure system of digital network collaboration, digital cloud collaboration, cloud edge collaboration and green intelligence.
The release of a series of policies has made the direction for the development of computing industry in the next few years. In the era of digital economy, the traditional rack scale index to measure the level of industrial development has been unable to meet the needs of development. The proposal of computing power index means that the whole industry is evolving towards high-quality development, which will not only better promote the quality and efficiency reform of data center, but also empower the transformation and upgrading of economy and society.
In 2021, the computing power level of China's data centers has been significantly improved. According to the statistics of China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, by the end of 2021, the total scale of standard racks of data centers in use in China was about 5 million, with a growth rate of more than 25%, and the total scale of computing power was about 130 EFLOPS. The industry believes that with the full opening of the computing power era and the coordinated promotion of the whole industry, China's computing power resources will be further optimized in 2022, and the total scale of computing power will continue to grow.
Speed up the construction of computing network
Computing power has become a new productivity. The continuous improvement of computing power level is inseparable from the strong support of the network. "The era of computing power requires cloud network edge collaboration", Academician Wu Hequan put forward this view. Academician Zheng Weimin believes that "strengthening computing with the network" is the fundamental path to the development of computing power network. Using computing power network to form integrated services with the integration of computing power, network, artificial intelligence, blockchain and other elements will promote the structural reform of the supply side of computing power economy and stimulate the paradigm innovation of computing power services.
With the accelerated integration of computing power and network, the concept of "computing power network" is rising. In the past few years, China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom, together with equipment manufacturers, Internet enterprises and other industrial parties, have jointly promoted the construction of computing network and sped up digital network collaboration, cloud network collaboration and computing network integration.
In November 2020, China Telecom officially released The 2030 Technical White Paper on Cloud Network Integration, which clearly proposed three development stages from cloud network collaboration, cloud network integration to cloud network unity, and defined the computing network. In November 2021, China Mobile released The White Paper of China Mobile Computing Network, which pointed out that computing network integrates eight core elements of "ABCDNETS", including artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud, big data, network, edge computing, terminal and security. In March 2021, China Unicom officially released CUBE-Net 3.0 network innovation system. The system has three characteristics, one of which is "integration of computing and network", which aims to realize deep-level cloud network integration through "integration of computing and network".
At present, building a high-quality "computing network" has become the strategic layout of basic telecom enterprises. Ke Ruiwen, chairman of China Telecom, said in his 2022 Spring Festival message that China Telecom has steadily promoted the integration of network with cloud and cloud network, accelerated the construction of intelligent and comprehensive digital information infrastructure, and continued to enable the transformation of thousands of lines and hundreds of industries. Yang Jie, chairman of China Mobile, said that it is the general trend to build a ubiquitous integrated computing network and create a "computing service" with one click to access and get to use, so as to promote the integration of network and computing. Liu Liehong, chairman of China Unicom, said that China Unicom is making strong computing and building a multi-level computing infrastructure system of digital network collaboration, digital cloud collaboration, cloud edge collaboration and green intelligence to support the comprehensive and diverse digital needs of different dimensions and levels.
Looking forward to 2022, accelerating the construction of computing network has become an industry consensus. With the deepening of digital network collaboration, cloud network collaboration and digital cloud collaboration, the evolution of data center to computing power center will be accelerated, and the computing power level of the whole society will continue to improve. Computing power is expected to integrate into people's production and life like water and electricity, so as to lay a solid "computing power base" for the digital transformation of thousands of industries and boost the vigorous development of digital economy.
