British media: China challenges the US's leading position in artificial intelligence
China is actively increasing its investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure, aiming to narrow the technological gap with the United States. According to the Financial Times, although the United States currently controls as much as 75% of global artificial intelligence computing power, while China only accounts for 15%, this gap could quickly narrow.
The newspaper pointed out that one of China's most important projects is a large data center complex being built on the Yangtze River near Wuhu. The participants in the project call it China's "Stargate," which is intended to meet the growing demand for artificial intelligence applications and to become part of a larger national strategy to centralize and improve the efficiency of big data processing.
While the United States is advancing its own large projects, such as building the world's largest artificial intelligence center in Texas, China's approach is known for its distributed characteristics. Existing data centers in remote areas of western China are being repositioned for training language models, while new server clusters are being built closer to major cities to speed up processing for end users. This is an attempt by the Chinese government to more efficiently allocate limited computing resources and maximize economic benefits.
Government support and subsidies for chip procurement play an important role in the development of artificial intelligence infrastructure, reaching as high as 30% in some regions. However, China also faces serious challenges: U.S. export restrictions have hindered the purchase of modern NVIDIA processors and other high-tech products, and domestic processors are not always able to meet the growing demand for artificial intelligence computing, mainly due to limited production capacity. As a result, local data centers are forced to use lower-performance equipment. Although there are illegal methods of purchasing microchips through third countries, these methods are not very effective for large data centers, as they require continuous maintenance from suppliers to ensure smooth operation of the centers.
To address these challenges, Beijing is using advanced network technologies developed by China Telecom and Huawei to promote interconnection between different data centers. This makes it possible to create distributed computing clusters without physically moving servers, thereby increasing overall available computing power. Leading Chinese companies are working to improve the management of these networks to enhance their efficiency and reduce costs.
China is engaged in a fierce competition with the United States for dominance in artificial intelligence, relying on infrastructure development, government subsidies, and network innovation. However, as the Financial Times points out in conclusion, strict restrictions on access to advanced technology and issues with efficiency still hinder the full realization of China's ambitious goals.
Original: www.toutiao.com/article/1843964903521292/
Statement: The article represents the views of the author.