Computing power network, everyone has his own calculations

In recent years, waves of digitalization have come one after another. Especially since last year, the rise of AI has led to an explosion in industry demand for computing power, and the construction of computing power infrastructure has become a key topic of concern to the industry.

On the one hand, the demand side has put forward more requirements for the supply of computing power, and GPU, an important component of intelligent computing power, is stuck; on the other hand, the country's dual-carbon strategy requires changing the traditional development model, emphasizing that the construction of computing power cannot be simple and crude. As a result, new names and concepts such as "Eastern Digital and Western Calculation" and "Computing Power Network" have appeared frequently, and huge business opportunities have emerged in the digital industry.

Amidst the dazzling corporate announcements and dazzling government documents, I found that there seems to be no consensus in the industry on how to build computing infrastructure and how to build a "computing network". Telecom operators, Internet companies, and the National Development and Reform Commission, all Fang’s ideas are quite different.

[Computing power network of telecom operators]

The first time I saw the name "Computing Power Network" was at China Mobile.

When Yang Jie was working at China Telecom, he always insisted on promoting the "cloud-network integration" strategy and made Tianyi Cloud the most eye-catching cloud business among telecom operators.

After being transferred to the chairmanship of China Mobile in 2019, the initial business direction was still centered on 5G and using the strong advantages formed in the field of wireless communications to expand digital capabilities.

Since the second half of 2021, the development direction has gradually been adjusted to a combination of "connection + computing power + capability", and "computing power network" frequently appears in China Mobile's documents.

According to reports, China Mobile first appeared in the public eye with computing power at the ITU SG13 plenary meeting held in October 2019. At that time, the "Requirements and Application Scenarios of Computing Power Aware Network" project led by China Mobile was approved by the plenary session and became the first international standard project for computing power aware network. The landmark event is the "China Mobile Computing Power Network White Paper" issued at the 2021 Partner Conference.

Later I discovered that in fact, as early as November 2019, China Unicom had released the "China Unicom Computing Power Network White Paper", but at that time the industry did not pay much attention to computing power, and the relatively weak China Unicom had a relatively small voice and did not It did not cause much repercussions in the industry.

From a global perspective, with the continuous evolution of the ICT industry, telecom operators that were in full swing in the 2G era have gradually lost their dominant position. After the rise of cloud computing, traditional telecom operators have lost out in this field. The US operators that were once the benchmark in the industry gave up their public cloud business. European ICT companies are even less able to compete with US cloud computing companies. There are only three in China. Operators are still struggling to support themselves amid ridicule from the industry and pressure from Internet companies.

In order to maintain the survival of cloud business, China's telecom operators generally adopt the "cloud + network" combination model, trying to use their own advantages in network to combine connection services with cloud services to form a basic digital capability base for enterprise customers. . Such a combination of capabilities is dispensable for the digitization of ToC and Internet-native enterprises; but it is quite attractive for traditional industries, especially larger-scale customers spanning multiple locations.

Nowadays, there is a high demand for the development of computing infrastructure, and telecom operators believe that this is a new development opportunity:

Telecom operators have the ability to build infrastructure on a large scale, and they have a large number of computer room and site resources. Through transformation and expansion, the infrastructure can not only provide connection and cloud computing capabilities, but also provide the computing power and storage capacity required by customers. ; Combined with the nationwide transmission network, it provides high-quality, reliable and sufficient computing and network integration services.

If we go one step further, we must continue to optimize the combination model of connection and computing power through unified management of computing network resources and intelligent capability orchestration to improve the supply efficiency of digital infrastructure.

Therefore, telecom operators ambitiously believe that based on their existing capability base and resource advantages, and using computing power networks as an important starting point for their rise, they can regain dominance in the digital industry and create greater glory in the future.

Therefore, in the eyes of telecom operators, the computing network is a digital infrastructure that provides data and computing power for applications, and its essence is still a network. This network can transform connections into data, mobilize computing power and storage capacity for customers, and lay the foundation for the development and operation of digital applications.

[Computing power network of Internet cloud companies]

Nowadays, Internet companies are no longer as prosperous as they were in previous years. ToC business has peaked, capital operations have been blocked, technology and industrial innovation have encountered bottlenecks, coupled with major changes in the domestic and international situation and pattern, many factors have been superimposed. Compared with before the epidemic, Internet companies today are much more low-key.

In recent times, the development of public cloud business of Internet companies has encountered certain setbacks: the development speed has declined, the number of customers has peaked, and some of the lost customers have been poached by other cloud platforms, and some have switched to private clouds. As the rapid expansion of business scale is unsustainable, funds are insufficient to support all-round expansion, marginal expansion businesses shrink, and dark clouds of cost reduction and efficiency increase hang over employees. It is not easy to maintain the stable operation of a huge system. , risks occur frequently.

How will the cloud business continue? If we only compete at the IaaS level, homogeneous competition will be very fierce. In the face of telecom operators with big businesses and thick skins, the original model of “subsidy in exchange for market, forming a monopoly and then making profits” simply doesn’t work. Moreover, the operations of Internet companies focus on efficiency. Although they can concentrate their superior forces on key events to do big things, they are not advantageous in the long run when it comes to the operation model of telecom operators with wide coverage of marketing channels and sinking down to the grassroots level. .

Therefore, when Internet companies engage in cloud business, they must rely on their technological advantages and the ability to flexibly position themselves in the market to compete differentiatedly with the giants.

Internet companies do not like unified standards, because in the IT and Internet circles, it is most beneficial to promote de facto standards based on their own interests. Whoever develops relatively solid technical capabilities first will have to adopt a follow-up strategy and abide by the standards set by the former if they want to cooperate. This not only makes it easier for the frontrunners to continue to lead, but also increases the cost of platform migration for partners: development done on platform A will require additional costs to migrate to platform B. Who is willing to spend more money if they are not forced to do so? .

Developing business based on factual standards requires strong industrial ecological support. If no one plays with you and no one responds to the standards you make, then your money will be wasted. Therefore, when a company is relatively weak and small, it is not suitable for this kind of high-flying routine. A common phenomenon in the IT and Internet fields is that the strong always get stronger: the stronger you are, the more business opportunities you have, and the more active your partners are. The ecological circle is closer to success.

From a cost perspective alone, customers and application developers hope that the capabilities provided by the cloud platform are unified and standardized. If the services and capabilities provided by all cloud platforms are the same and competition is highly homogeneous, customers and developers will take the initiative in the game with the platform, forcing the platform to fall into price competition.

The IT industry is extremely open, and the advantages gained by technological leadership are difficult to maintain for a long time. New things that have been thought up through hard work may be quickly noticed and imitated by competitors. If Cloud loses its ability to command premium prices, what will be left?

Therefore, Internet companies can only start from the technology and service aspects, continue to build the differentiated advantages of the platform at the PaaS layer, provide effective help and support to application developers and digital users, and guide partners to use homogeneous infrastructure. At the same time, use as many platform capabilities as possible. The stronger the dependence on the differentiated capabilities provided by the platform, the lower the probability that partners will leave the network and switch to other platforms. By building up the industrial ecology, the cloud platform can regain the dominance of competition.

Nowadays, the "computing power network" provides Internet companies with new opportunities to expand cloud business: leveraging the industrial development opportunities of building digital infrastructure, realizing the distributed construction and networking of cloud resource pools, and reducing costs through the rational layout and efficient use of resources. , using its own technical capabilities to continuously optimize the operation and management of the entire network, and form external cloud computing capability output that can be flexibly adjusted according to user needs.

Therefore, for Internet cloud companies, the computing power network is the distributed cloud computing base that supports digital applications. It is an upgraded version of the cloud computing platform. It reduces the supply cost of cloud services through reasonable allocation and flexible combination of capabilities and resources, thereby increasing the scale of cloud business use.

[The Computing Power Network in the Mind of the National Development and Reform Commission]

The full name of the National Development and Reform Commission is the "National Development and Reform Commission". It is an important government department responsible for formulating and issuing industrial policies. The understanding and assumptions about computing power networks are hidden in various documents, which often require in-depth analysis to interpret.

In May 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission, together with the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Energy Bureau and other departments, released the "Implementation Plan for the Computing Power Hub of the National Integrated Big Data Center Collaborative Innovation System", which mentioned the "Eastern Data and Western Calculation" project for the first time. At that time, the focus of this document was the construction of computing power hubs, and the only content related to the network was "interconnection" among the key tasks.

For more than two years since then, most relevant documents have focused on the construction of computing power hubs. Until the end of last year, the "Implementation Opinions on Deeply Implementing the "Eastern Data and Western Calculation" Project to Accelerate the Construction of a National Integrated Computing Power Network" was released. "Computing Power Network" The name shines.

It is not difficult to see that the National Development and Reform Commission is now applying historical successful experiences and cross-industry practical cases to the digital field. I had previously done the South-to-North Water Diversion Project and the West-to-East Electricity Transmission Project, but now I am very familiar with doing this.

Moreover, when leaders and experts in the information industry introduce computing power, they often compare computing power to electricity and rely on public utilities for computing power infrastructure. They believe that future computing power output will be like water and electricity, which can be turned on immediately. use. Therefore, from the perspective of the National Development and Reform Commission, it is logical to copy the dispatching and management model of electricity and water to the East and West, and transplant the power reform plan to the construction of computing infrastructure.

In the 2002 "Electricity System Reform Plan", the core of the reform is to establish an electricity market system and split the original State Power Company into two major power grid companies, five major power generation groups and four major auxiliary industry groups to realize power generation, transmission and Separate electricity sales. So, can the development of computing power separate the supply and transmission of computing power? The former is the "computing power hub node", and the latter is the "computing power network", and then uses "Eastern computing and Western computing" to balance the conflict between industrial development and energy conservation and emission reduction. These elements are combined to form a national integrated computing network. power infrastructure.

According to the vision in the National Development and Reform Commission document, the computing infrastructure should be decoupled.

The first level of decoupling is the decoupling of the computing power hub center and the computing power network. Referring to the electric power reform plan, some enterprises and units are responsible for the construction and operation of general computing power, intelligent computing power and other facilities; other enterprises are responsible for the construction and operation of computing power networks that achieve high bandwidth, low latency, and support heterogeneous and cross-domain transmission. .

This conflicts with the ideas of telecom operators.

The second level of decoupling is to promote the standardization of computing power supply and reduce the migration cost of application developers and customers when using computing power. Industry experts will take the lead in formulating computing power grid connection standards to promote the standardization and universalization of computing power services and improve the ease of use of computing power resources; strengthen diversified computing power interconnection and unified services, and promote the supply, dispatch and use of computing power and intelligent settlement to improve the convenience of using computing power for small and medium-sized enterprises and the ease of use of various computing power for users.

This is inconsistent with the thinking of Internet companies.

So if traditional digital infrastructure suppliers do not cooperate, will the plan fail? We saw the following content in the National Development and Reform Commission documents:

“Support the cultivation of professional computing network operators, strengthen the full-cycle operation management of computing power and network operation, management and maintenance, and explore the standard system and computing network collaborative operation mechanism of unified measurement, unified billing, unified transactions, and unified settlement. Create a new ecosystem of computing power services with efficient supply, institutionalized dispatching, and intelligent operations.”

“Explore the construction of a national integrated computing power network prototype technology experimental field, strengthen the development of computing power network technical standards, and support industry, academia and research parties to carry out research and development and experimental promotion of common computing power network technologies. Explore new research and development models, gather high-end technical forces, and establish a national Level computing power network common technology research and development platform to strengthen national strategic scientific and technological strength. Actively carry out the "unveiling and leading" of key technologies such as distributed computing power parallel scheduling and heterogeneous computing power scheduling to cultivate the computing power industry ecology. Give full play to scientific research institutions, industry associations, Industry alliances and other functions can promote the formulation and promotion of standards and specifications in fields such as computing power scheduling and computing power settlement."

The industrial pie is so big. If you don’t want to do it, there are many people who are willing to do it. Under the heavy rewards, there must be brave men.

Therefore, for the National Development and Reform Commission, although the computing power network is an integrated infrastructure, the structure is loosely coupled. Ultimately, it is necessary to develop digitalization under the constraints of low carbon and environmental protection, and to use cheap and high-quality computing power infrastructure to develop digitalization. Target.

【Conclusion】

Promulgating industrial policies, building large-scale infrastructure in advance, and then promoting industrial development with low-price and high-quality infrastructure are important experiences in developing China's industrial economy. Large-scale high-speed rail construction has given wings to the economic development along the line, and telecom operators' speed increases and fee reductions have promoted the explosion of the mobile Internet industry. These are all successful cases. Therefore, we have reason to believe that building a national integrated computing power network characterized by “numbering in the east and calculating in the west” will effectively reduce the cost of computing power required for digitalization and create conditions for the overall development of the digital industry.

So to take a step back, if computing in the east and west does not achieve the imagined goal, the worst thing is that the infrastructure is not efficient and fails to significantly reduce the cost of computing power. Even so, if greater value can be created on the application side, digitalization will still flourish, and the bigger the cake will still be, the participating players will gain a lot.

At this stage, after seeing the road map clearly, outsiders can wait and see what happens and wait for the results in a few years; but those who are involved must make a choice.