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A domestic high-end intelligent computing center will be built in Wuxi High-tech

Suoyuan Technology, in collaboration with its ecosystem partners, has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Wuxi High-tech Zone, planning to jointly build a domestic high-end intelligent computing center.

Computing power, as the name suggests, refers to the ability to calculate. Although invisible and intangible, computing power is indispensable for any smart device in the digital age, from unlocking mobile phones and facial recognition to scanning code payments, and from autonomous driving to smart cities. Especially with the advent of the AI wave, the demand for computing power has grown "explosively." The main "engine" to support these demands is the computing power center.

Recently, Suoyuan Technology, a unicorn enterprise in the field of domestic controllable artificial intelligence computing power hardware, has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Wuxi High-tech Zone, along with its ecosystem partners. According to the agreement, the two parties will jointly build a domestic high-end intelligent computing center, a large-scale and powerful autonomous controllable "super engine" that will rise in Wuxi High-tech Zone this year.

Why build an intelligent computing center? New demands activate new quality productive forces.

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Why build such an intelligent computing center? This stems from the industrial advantages and needs of Wuxi High-tech Zone. Looking at the industrial advantages, integrated circuits are one of the "ace industries" with the most core competitiveness and continuous explosive power in the district. As Zhang Yalin, the founder and chief operating officer of Shanghai Suoyuan Technology Co., Ltd., one of the strategic cooperation parties, said, "This is a highly concentrated area of the semiconductor industry in the East China region, with a complete industrial chain including design, manufacturing, and packaging." Data shows that Wuxi High-tech Zone concentrates nearly 80% of the integrated circuit enterprises in Wuxi City and 70% of the output, second only to Shanghai Zhangjiang, and is one of the few integrated circuit industry clusters in the country that has broken through the scale of 100 billion yuan.

Looking at the industrial needs, as an important carrier of computing power, computing power infrastructure is undoubtedly the basic guarantee to promote the digital transformation of traditional manufacturing industry and the development of integrated circuit industry and digital economy. The massive increase in data, the increasing complexity of algorithm models, and the gradual deepening development of application scenarios have brought about a rapid increase in the demand for computing power. "Here, there is a rich ecosystem of artificial intelligence services for computing power." Behind the vigorous development of various visible "AI+" innovative applications such as OpenAI, ChatGPT, and AIGC, there is invisible artificial intelligence computing power to support.

In fact, more than 10 years ago, communication "bigwigs" such as mobile, telecom, and unicom settled in Wuxi High-tech Zone with Internet data centers to provide data services for local enterprises. Government service departments learned through in-depth visits and research in enterprises that a group of software companies such as Yongzhong, Tezan, Zhen Island, and Yuanshi Cloud are eager to purchase computing power services nearby. Wuxi Software Park alone has gathered 2,500 software companies with an annual revenue of 34.6 billion yuan, accounting for 20% of the city's scale."Under the background of restrictions in the domestic high-end chip field, we need to build a more autonomous, controllable, secure, and reliable smart computing center and industrial ecosystem that benefits the long term." Zheng Jiangwei, Chairman and General Manager of Wuxi Software Industry Development Co., Ltd., stated that the construction of a smart computing center will inject a surging momentum into the digital economy, becoming a powerful engine to activate new quality productive forces.

How to use computing power like electricity and water? New foundation, empowering innovation and entrepreneurship enterprises.

"Computing power is like the water power of the agricultural civilization era and the electrical power of the industrial civilization era, injecting new momentum into economic development, especially the digital economy." Zheng Jiangwei said that computing power is becoming a public basic resource like water, electricity, and gas, and is an important infrastructure for the development of the national economy. "It can be said that whoever masters computing power will have a stronger competitive advantage."

Since digital technologies such as 5G, cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things all rely on computing power, how can users better use computing power services like electricity and water?

It is reported that the core of computing power realization is various types of computing chips such as CPU, GPU, FPGA, and ASIC, and is carried by computers, servers, high-performance computing clusters, and various intelligent terminals. The smart computing center with ultra-high computing speed and ultra-strong data processing capabilities is a "super engine" for AI technology research and development and application, specifically meeting the huge and diversified artificial intelligence computing power needs. "If artificial intelligence is an accelerator of innovation, then the smart computing center can provide 'fuel' for various technological innovations." Zheng Jiangwei said that the size of computing power determines the speed of iteration and innovation of artificial intelligence technology, and it can be said to be the "technical foundation" of the development of the artificial intelligence industry.

According to the new generation of artificial intelligence computing power platform jointly built by Suyuan Technology and Wuxi High-tech Zone, this smart computing center adopts a heterogeneous computing power architecture, of which Nvidia's high-end computing power H800/H100 accounts for about 80%, and Suyuan's domestic AI computing power accounts for about 20%, with a total computing power of no less than 1000P (FP16) of AI computing power. What is the equivalent of such computing power? According to Zhang Yalin, 1P is equivalent to a hundred billion calculations per second, and 1000P can provide about 300-500 artificial intelligence scenarios. According to the plan, the smart computing center mainly serves biomedical applications and will expand to smart cities, robots, intelligent manufacturing, AIGC large models, and other scenarios. It can be anticipated that the completion of the smart computing center will quickly empower innovation and entrepreneurship enterprises and reduce the threshold for innovation.

What is different about this smart computing center? New vision, model project builds a large ecosystem.

Various places have joined the wave of smart computing center construction, what is different about this one in Wuxi High-tech Zone? It is revealed that in this cooperation, Suyuan's ecological partners jointly invested 340 million yuan to establish a computing power company, of which the Xinwu District Government invested 100 million yuan for a 30% stake, and Suyuan's ecological partners' funds accounted for 70% of the shares. Among them, the government's 100 million yuan investment will be returned over 5 years. "This fully demonstrates that our cooperation with Wuxi High-tech Zone is long-term." Zhang Yalin said.As one of the well-known "pioneers" in the domestic artificial intelligence chip industry, Shanghai Suyuan Technology Co., Ltd. focuses on cloud and edge computing power technologies in the field of artificial intelligence. They have iteratively developed a range of AI training and inference products, providing original innovations and AI acceleration cards, system clusters, and software and hardware solutions with independent intellectual property rights. They have grown into a domestic computational infrastructure solution provider.

"We do not need substantial government investment; we are confident in building and maintaining it well," said Suyuan Technology. They are planning to establish the first regional intelligent computing center in the Huadong area in the Wuxi High-tech Zone, which will be a pioneering model project and is expected to be completed and operational within this year. At the same time, Suyuan Technology's Huadong regional headquarters will be based in the Wuxi High-tech Zone, leveraging the "chain leader" enterprise's traction effect. Relying on the ecosystem effect of Suyuan Technology, they aim to attract more high-quality projects to Wuxi, synergize with the industrial internet and the application end of the chip industry chain, facilitate the supply and demand of computing power, and form a competitive and cohesive artificial intelligence ecosystem.

Officials from the Wuxi High-tech Zone stated that the construction of the intelligent computing center is just the beginning. In the future, they will focus on key areas and industries, actively cultivate and promote a number of large-scale, highly impactful, and exemplary application scenarios. With the digital transformation of the manufacturing industry as a priority, they encourage all parties to provide more refined and personalized computing power products and services, and guide more enterprises to accelerate their pace of cloud adoption, data utilization, and intelligence enhancement.

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