New Momentum Generated by "Numbers" and Productivity Calculated by "Calculations" - The Trend of the 2024 World Computing Conference
2024-10-10
The 2024 World Computing Congress was recently held in Changsha. The construction of a computing power network technology system for independent innovation, large-scale heterogeneous computing power interconnection, collaborative scheduling, and efficient computing infrastructure have become the hot topics of discussion among the attendees. In the exhibition area of the conference achievements, new technologies and achievements in the domestic and foreign computing industry, such as three-dimensional computing and embodied intelligence, shine brightly. The reporter felt inside and outside the venue that with the widespread use of advanced computing power, the world is gradually "immersed" in the vast ocean of informatization and intelligence. The theme of the 2024 World Computing Conference is "Intelligent Computing for All Things in Hunan - Calculating New Quality Productivity". This is also the sixth consecutive year that Hunan has hosted the World Computing Conference. From mental arithmetic and abacus to supercomputing and quantum computing, Hunan has witnessed the leap of "Chinese computing" for thousands of years. And computational science has also laid a solid foundation for human society to move from agriculture and industrialization to informatization and intelligence. Li Kenli, Vice President of Hunan University and Director of the National Supercomputing Changsha Center, stated that strictly speaking, "computational science" should be referred to as "computer science". Since mathematician Alan Turing proposed the theoretical framework of the Turing machine in 1936, computer science has gone through nearly a century, and its development has shown three major characteristics: faster iteration, and with the improvement of supercomputing level, computer science is advancing at an unprecedented speed; The role of computer science is greater, and its promotion of technological development is more significant. From the steam age to the intelligent society, computer science continuously empowers science and technology, promoting economic and social development; The current popular applications of generative artificial intelligence and vertical large-scale models are computer science achievements that serve applications, and such development will continue to deepen in the future Li Kenli said. The Economic Reference News reporter also learned at the 2024 World Computing Conference that as of now, China's total computing power ranks second in the world, with diversified computing centers such as large data centers, supercomputing centers, and intelligent computing centers maintaining high-speed growth. Driven by computing power, advanced manufacturing, modern agriculture, and even social management are undergoing profound transformations, and emerging industries such as large models are experiencing explosive growth. Computing power is not only becoming larger and faster at a speed visible to the naked eye, but also becoming more intelligent. If computing power is the road and algorithms are the car, we need to not only make way for better driving, but also increase the horsepower of the car. "Li Kenli believes that on the one hand, we need to improve the level of supercomputing in hardware, and on the other hand, we need to optimize algorithm capabilities in software in order to promote the rapid integration and development of supercomputing and artificial intelligence. ZTE Corporation Chairman Li Zixue stated that in the era of "digital intelligence", computing power has become a new productivity engine, but it also faces challenges such as insufficient and uneven computing power, closed industrial ecology, and some computing power being "difficult to use". It is necessary to promote the "networking" and "group building" of computing power to further unleash the potential of computing resources. In response to these issues, ZTE has proposed a solution that emphasizes network computing, open decoupling, and intelligent maintenance. This includes promoting the networking of computing power resources, creating a new type of computing network that is non blocking, high bandwidth, and low latency, meeting the flexible networking needs of ultra large scale computing power from kilocards to tens of thousands of cards, and supporting unified management and scheduling of heterogeneous computing power Li self-study said. In fact, in recent years, cross regional, multi-level, and software hardware integrated computing scheduling platforms have been continuously emerging to meet the diverse needs of business application scenarios. Wang Huaimin, an academician of the CAS Member and a professor of the National University of Defense Technology, believes that the next step is to connect multiple stakeholders through cloud computing technology to achieve the goal of computing resource scheduling of "service without boundaries, collaboration between clouds, easy sharing of resources, and value convertibility". "The national level computing power network is an inevitable trend of computing infrastructure development... In the future, we should establish computing power network like a power grid, and operate computing power network like an Internet, so that users can use computing power like electricity." Wang Huaimin said. The Changsha Initiative on Green and Intelligent Computing released at the 2024 World Computing Conference, which aims to "do everything possible" to save energy and reduce carbon, proposes to increase the application of advanced green technologies, actively introduce green power energy, accelerate the construction of green data centers and intelligent computing centers, build flexible and efficient computing Internet, and build diversified, intelligent, agile, safe, reliable, green and low-carbon digital infrastructure. The reporter from Economic Reference Daily learned that behind the "Changsha Initiative" is a prominent challenge facing computing technology today - the problem of high energy consumption. How can a hot and smoking data center cool down? "Industry insiders have raised such a question. It is estimated that the global data center power consumption will be 460 billion kilowatt hours in 2022, and this number may even exceed 1 trillion kilowatt hours by 2026. In recent years, the electricity consumption of data centers in China has also grown rapidly. It is predicted that by 2025, the proportion of electricity consumption in data centers will increase to 5% of the total electricity consumption in society. At the special exhibition site of this year's conference, a computer with key components completely immersed in sparkling transparent liquid caught the attention of reporters. According to technicians from Zhongke Shuguang, this Shuguang submerged liquid cooled computer was once featured as a "future technology" computer in the movie "Wandering Earth 2". Transparent liquid is an electronic fluorine liquid, which has the characteristics of insulation and zero corrosiveness. Compared with traditional air cooling methods, the Shuguang liquid cooling solution can reduce data center energy consumption by up to 30%, and related products have also attracted attention from the industry. Not only this company, but also the green computing industry has entered the fast lane of development to achieve carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals, constantly emerging new technologies, new formats, and new models. At the enterprise level, some measures such as hardware research and development, architecture optimization, and coordinated deployment are taken to help server customers save electricity; At the local level, some have built green data industry bases that use low-temperature surface water to provide cooling and heat dissipation for servers. The construction cost and electricity consumption of refrigeration projects are lower than traditional cooling methods; At the national level, we will explore the integration of integrated computing power and green power, explore new power systems such as "source grid load storage" integration, microgrids, and green power direct supply, promote the construction of clean energy computing power centers, transform from "watts" to "bits", and achieve the transformation of green energy into green computing power. A few years ago, if you went to the hospital to see a doctor, the doctor said, "Sorry, I have to ask AI." You may have doubts about the doctor's professional level. But in 10 years, if doctors don't use AI, patients may not trust them anymore. At the keynote speech of the 2024 World Computing Conference, Piero Scaruffi, the director of the Silicon Valley Artificial Intelligence Research Institute in the United States, described this interesting scene. Later, he "spoilers" by saying that the latest research shows that AI can do as well as doctors. My favorite thing about medical AI is that it will bring about tremendous changes, changing the interaction between us, doctors, and hospitals. The results presented at the 2024 World Computing Conference also prove what Piero Scaruffi said. In the exhibition area, a large model of cerebrovascular disease specialized disease attracted many inquiries from the audience. New H3C engineer Peng Yang said that the large model is fed with massive medical record data. When the patient's blood pressure, heart rate, medical history and other information are input, it can provide diagnosis and treatment plans, basically reaching the level of senior doctors. Not only in the medical industry, but also with the emergence of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and vertical large-scale models, various industries such as industry, communication, and urban management are undergoing profound changes. The "new species" of embodied intelligence will change the traditional service industry model, and unmanned mining trucks can operate and make decisions completely autonomously... These new scenarios are highly discussed by people. With the increasingly solid foundation of infrastructure construction, computing power has widely penetrated into various fields such as personal life, government management, and industrial development, presenting a picture of "intelligent computing of all things". In the exhibition hall of Hunan Malanshan Advanced Technology Research Institute Co., Ltd., there is a "tree" on the display board that symbolizes the industrial ecology. The basic hardware enterprise centered on graphic computing is the root of the tree, while basic software, content creation tools, film and television production enterprises are the trunk and branches. Nowadays, this' tree 'has become lush with branches and leaves. The deputy general manager of the company, Yang Yi, said that the combination of computing power, algorithms, and materials has reshaped the production of video content. By building a computing power public service platform, it has attracted the gathering of factors and formed a closed loop of the "video+computing power" industry chain. Urban management is also a major direction for the implementation of large-scale models. According to sources from the Hunan Provincial Data Bureau, the new smart city team in Wangcheng District, Changsha City has created a "data empowerment village community" and "maximum once reporting" platform, extending and sinking big data and computing power into the service scenarios of village communities. In this system, various types of information are updated in real time and can be accessed by grassroots staff at any time according to authorization. At the same time, it also helps the community to carry out public service scenarios such as "finding people", "finding certificates", "finding cars", "handling on the code", and "protecting buds with sharp swords". During the conference, a reporter from the Economic Reference Daily visited the National Supercomputing Changsha Center, which is separated from the main venue by a river. Upon seeing the design of the main building, it highlighted two numbers -0 and 1. An industry expert told reporters that 0 and 1 are the basic operators of computer languages, and at the same time, 0 and 1 also imply that the competitive outcome in the field of computing power is only 0 and 1- either to be the first or the only. And once this is achieved, the empowerment of computing power to the industry may range from "1" to "10" or even more... (New Press)
Edit：Yao Jue Responsible editor：Xie Tunan
Source：Economic Information Daily
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