China started building the Tianfu data centre, a national hub node for the Chengdu-Chongqing integrated computing power network. The “East Counting West Counting” project was inaugurated in February this year and includes eight national hub nodes of the national computer network, of which the Chengdu-Chongqing node is one.
The Sichuan province is the centre of the project and will focus on building Tianfu data centre clusters. The province has been selected after carefully analysing Sichuan’s industrial layout, energy structure, geology, climate, and other factors. Several internal data centres will be built in cities and form a province-wide integration of “cluster-city” complementarity and “cloud-edge” coordination data centre system.
The Tianfu data centre cluster starting area will be constructed to a high standard by 2025, and it will have a capacity of 500,000 racks. By 2030, computing power and effectiveness will be at a national advanced level and serve as the project’s central node.
The Sichuan node will become an important base for the development of China’s computing power network, said Chen Jing, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Sichuan is capable of simultaneously performing the jobs of “East Counting” and “West Counting.” The five terms “Digital Network,” “Digital Button,” “Digital Chain,” “Digital Brain,” and “Digital Shield” are used to describe how to do it.
The hub node was simply written as “1+N” in Chinese. The Tianfu data centre cluster at the national level is identified as number 1. The cluster consists of the Tianfu New District-based supercomputing industry cluster, the Chengdu High-tech Zone-based intelligent computing industry cluster, and the Eastern New District-based cloud and edge computing industry cluster.
The five internal data centres located in cities Mianyang, Deyang, Ya’an, Yibin, Dazhou and other locations are referred to as N.
The importance of the Sichuan node
The Sichuan node is a major structure for the East Counting and West Computing national integrated big data centre innovation system. The node will encourage the quick development of a brand-new network architecture for computing power in China. It is fostering the regional integration of high-speed intelligence, green technology and affordable computing power network resources.
China’s computer networks are still unable to supply enough computational capacity. Additionally, the systems for computer-network coordination are also unable to accurately respond to demands for computing power.
The network initiative can resolve China’s future computer power issues. Current issues with China’s computing power architecture include the lack of intelligent computing power, a dearth of heterogeneous computing power and less coordinated data centre growth.
Accelerated data circulation and value transfer between east and west will comprehensively support the digital upgrade and industrial digital transformation of various industries.
The upstream and downstream industries will both experience high-quality development as a result of the implementation of the “Digital from the East and Computation from the West” project and the building of a new computing power network system.
Chen is confident that the current computing revolution would affect the future and feels it will lead to an even greater digital change. Increased processing power will drive the creation and use of big data, artificial intelligence and technologies. Even currently, computational power is being deployed to address productivity challenges.