China Telecom plans huge computing centre in Shanghai’s hi-tech zone, helping to build computational power to support AI drive
- The state-owned company, through a subsidiary, plans to deploy a total of 40,000 high-power racks at the centre
- The computing centre in Shanghai’s Lingang New Area will mainly support local development of graphics processing units
China Telecom, which is quickly emerging as a powerful player in China’s cloud market, has unveiled a plan to set up a huge computing centre in the hi-tech zone of Shanghai to support the city’s artificial intelligence (AI) industry.
The state-owned company, through a subsidiary, plans to deploy a total of 40,000 high-power racks – each rack usually contains dozens of servers – for intelligent computing and supercomputing. The company did not disclose the investment size. China had 6.5 million racks in total as of the end of 2022.
It marks one of the biggest investments by China Telecom in computing centres as China accelerates development of its national computational power capabilities. This comes amid increased rivalry in advanced technologies, such as AI, with the US.
The development of AI technology, especially evident in the recent frenzy around ChatGPT-like services, is fuelling demand for the computing power needed by large language models (LLM).
The computing centre in Shanghai’s Lingang New Area will mainly serve local development of graphics processing units (GPUs) as the world’s dominant GPU maker, Nvidia, is not allowed to sell its most advanced products to China. The home-grown GPUs, in turn, can help AI businesses in Shanghai and the Yangtze River Delta, the official Shanghai Securities News reported.
