China Seeking to Increase Computing Prowess by 30% Focusing on AI

According to a plan announced by authorities on Oct 9, China intends to increase its aggregate computing capacity by more than 30% by 2025 as Beijing focuses on supercomputing and artificial intelligence developments. The idea comes amid increased competition between China and the United States in numerous high-tech areas, including semiconductors and supercomputers, and U.S. export limitations on chipmaking equipment.

The strategy, announced by six Beijing departments, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), has set a target of 300 EFLOPS for China's entire computing power by 2025. A computer's speed is measured in EFLOPS, equal to one quintillion floating-point operations per second. According to the MIIT, China's computing power has reached 197 EFLOPS this year, up from 180 EFLOPS in 2022. The ministry stated that China is second only to the United States regarding computing power but did not clarify the scale of computing power referred to.

Because AI training necessitates a considerable amount of processing, Beijing is increasingly focusing on boosting the computer power supply. In a blog post published by Google last month, top-tier generative AI models will "require tens of EFLOPs of AI supercomputing to maintain training times of several weeks or less."

China intends to establish more data centers across the country to improve enterprises' access to computing resources, according to the plan.