Detailed explanation of experts on the full launch of "East Numbers and Western Calculations": Not all "East Numbers" need "Western Computing"
China Central Broadcasting Network, Beijing, February 21 (Reporter Liu Baixuan) According to a report by the Voice of Economy of China Central Radio and Television Station, "World Finance and Economics", the National Development and Reform Commission recently released a major news, officially launching the "East Number and West Calculation" in an all-round way.
This major project, known as the "South-to-North Water Diversion", "West-East Electricity Transmission" and "West-East Gas Transmission" in the digital economy era, has attracted great attention from the society and the market. .
What are the "numbers" and how to "count"?
Will the westward layout of high-energy-consuming data centers disrupt the low-carbon pace of the west?
Cheng Xusen, a researcher at the National Institute of Development and Strategy of Renmin University of China, a professor at the School of Information, and director of the Digital Economy and Business Collaboration Laboratory, was interviewed by reporters for interpretation.
There are natural advantages for the western region to undertake data centers
Reporter:
What do the "number" and "count" in "East and West count" refer to each other?
Cheng Xusen:
"Number" in "East and West Calculation" generally refers to "data", and "calculation" refers to "computing power", that is, the ability to process data.
At present, most of my country's data centers are located in the eastern region, but with the increasing shortage of resources such as land and energy, there will be certain resistance to continuing large-scale development or building data centers in the eastern region.
However, the western region of our country has abundant renewable resources, so this provides an opportunity to develop data centers in the western region and undertake the computing power demand of the eastern region.
"Counting the East and Counting the West" is not "Sacrificing the West and Protecting the East"
Reporter:
Data centers are often energy-intensive projects.
The data centers in the east are moving to the west. Under the current schedule of "carbon peaking" and "carbon neutrality", does this mean that the east has dumped the cost of high carbon on the west?
Cheng Xusen:
The original intention of the state to put forward "East and West" is to rationally optimize the allocation of resources in the central and western regions, rather than "sacrificing the western part to protect the eastern part".
First of all, the geographical and natural environment of the western region has natural advantages for the development of data centers, and the climate and temperature are more suitable.
Secondly, the western region is rich in renewable resources, and the data centers currently deployed in the western region use a lot of clean energy such as wind power, hydropower, and photovoltaics.
The development of data centers in the west does not mean that the protection of the environment and energy in the western region is not taken seriously.
On the contrary, in the process of advancing the "East Number and West Calculation" project, we should not only pay attention to the improvement of the computing capacity of the western region, but also pay attention to the environmental protection and energy conservation issues in the western region.
Not all "Eastern Numbers" have to be "Western Numbers"
Reporter:
"East and West Count" has also deployed national computing power hub nodes in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and other places.
Does this mean that not all "East numbers" are "Western"?
Cheng Xusen:
It is true, not all "Eastern Numbers" must be "Western Numbers".
"East and West" must be built on the basis of meeting people's needs, and then realize the optimal allocation of resources.
Especially for those businesses with high timeliness requirements, such as industrial Internet, financial securities, disaster warning, mobile medical care, teleconferencing and video calls, artificial intelligence reasoning, etc., it is not suitable for priority layout in the west.
Because if the layout is in the west, there may be a delay due to the long network transmission distance.
Obviously, this cannot meet these business needs mentioned above.
Therefore, data centers for such businesses that require high timeliness should still be deployed in eastern hubs such as the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
On the other hand, for back-end business, data processing and cleaning, offline analysis business, storage backup and other businesses that have relatively low network requirements, or businesses that do not require such high timeliness, it can accelerate the promotion of data centers to the west. The scale layout is the first to shift to the west, which will be undertaken by the Western Data Center.