China Aims to Boost Computing Power by Over 30% by 2025

China has unveiled a new plan to increase the country’s aggregate computing power by more than 30% by 2025, according to a recent announcement by authorities. As Beijing intensifies its focus on supercomputing and artificial intelligence (AI) innovations, this move aims to strengthen China’s position in high-tech areas and compete with the United States.

The plan, released by six departments in Beijing, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), sets a target for China’s total computing power to reach 300 EFLOPS (one quintillion floating-point operations per second) by 2025. The MIIT reported that China’s computing power has already reached 197 EFLOPS this year, surpassing the 2022 figure of 180 EFLOPS.

With AI training requiring substantial computation, expanding the supply of computing power has become a crucial focus for Beijing. Top-tier generative AI models, as highlighted by Google, necessitate tens of EFLOPS of AI supercomputing to maintain training times of several weeks or less.

To facilitate businesses’ access to computing power, China plans to build more data centers across the country. Additionally, the plan aims to enhance computational infrastructure in less populated provinces, such as Guizhou in southwestern China, which has been tasked with establishing massive data centers to power the country’s internet.

Improving the speed and efficiency of the computation network is another key objective. The plan emphasizes that transmission speeds between critical computing facilities should not exceed a latency of 5 milliseconds.

China’s ambitious plan showcases its commitment to advancing technological capabilities and maintaining its position as a global leader in AI and supercomputing. By investing in computational infrastructure and expanding data centers, China aims to foster innovation and support the rapidly developing AI industry.

As the competition between China and the United States intensifies in high-tech sectors, this plan demonstrates China’s determination to remain at the forefront of technological advancements. With these strategic efforts, China is poised to make significant strides in computing power and solidify its position as a global tech powerhouse.