In order to promote the development of the computing industry, on February 29, Guizhou issued the first batch of "computing power coupons" to 72 enterprises inside and outside the province to deduct a certain percentage of fees when purchasing local computing power services or data transaction products. In addition, Henan, Zhejiang and other places have launched "computing power coupons" to support the development of artificial intelligence.
According to industry insiders, the SORA large model continues the technical path of the previous GPT model "source data-transformer-diffusion-emergence", and it is expected that the development of the SORA large model will further expand the computing power gap.
Reduce the cost of computing power
Computing power is the core productive force to promote the sustainable and healthy development of the digital economy, and its importance is becoming increasingly prominent.
It is reported that in 2024, Guizhou plans to issue a total of 100 million yuan of "computing power coupons", including cash coupons and a number of physical coupons. Among them, cash coupons can be used to purchase eligible Guizhou computing power services or Guizhou data trading products, and physical coupons can be used to subscribe for Guizhou special commodities on relevant platforms.
Since the launch of "Eastern Data and Western Computing", Guizhou has focused on giving full play to the scale effect of regional computing power, improving the quality and efficiency of computing power services, and building a nationwide computing power guarantee base. Guizhou's issuance of "computing power coupons" is a specific measure to promote the high-quality development of the digital economy, which will further reduce the cost of comprehensive computing power use by enterprises, guide the standardized development of the data trading market, promote the implementation of artificial intelligence applications, and boost the rapid development of the big data industry in Guizhou Province.
In the next step, Guizhou will vigorously build a nationwide computing power guarantee base, make good use of the "computing power coupon" policy, support and encourage enterprises, universities, and scientific research institutions inside and outside the province to purchase computing power services, cultivate a number of professional computing power operators, and strive to drive the scale of the computing power industry to exceed 10 billion yuan in 2024.
In fact, many places have started the application for "hash power vouchers". In January this year, Chengdu City started the application for the 2024 "Computing Power Voucher". It is reported that the total amount of "computing power coupons" to be issued in Chengdu in 2024 will not exceed 10 million yuan.
According to the application requirements, the "computing power coupon" is applied for by computing power demand enterprises, scientific research institutions and universities that use the computing power services of Chengdu Intelligent Computing Center and National Supercomputing Chengdu Center and have a main business income of more than 10 million yuan (including 10 million yuan) in the previous year. The application amount of "computing power coupons" is 50% of the contract fee of computing power services, and the minimum is not less than 10,000 yuan (including 10,000 yuan). The cumulative annual application quota of each unit shall not exceed 1 million yuan.
Seize the opportunity of the computing power market
With the development of large models, many places have seized the opportunity of computing power market.
On February 18, Liu Jie, deputy secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee and secretary of the Hangzhou Municipal Party Committee, said that Hangzhou will innovate and launch "computing power coupons", develop general models and vertical field models, and strive to build a national computing power cost depression and model output place.
In 2023, Hangzhou will issue a document to support the construction of artificial intelligence and computing power. The document proposes that on the basis of the inclusive supply of high-quality computing power, we will make every effort to build an innovation system from algorithm model innovation breakthroughs to industry transformation and application. According to the "Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Innovation and Development of the Artificial Intelligence Industry" issued by Hangzhou, Hangzhou encourages enterprises, universities and third-party institutions to build demand-oriented computing power centers, actively create a national public computing power open platform, and lower the threshold for small and medium-sized enterprises to use computing power; Promote the municipalization of computing power supply, and set up a total of no more than 50 million yuan of "computing power coupons" in the city every year, focusing on supporting small and medium-sized enterprises to purchase computing power services.
Beijing proposes to carry out the expansion of the digital base of smart cities, expand the application scope of common platforms, carry out the expansion and construction of networks, clouds and computing, improve the carrying and management capabilities of government infrastructure, and continue to promote the co-construction, sharing and sharing of sensing equipment and facilities in the city. Implement the implementation plan for the construction of computing infrastructure, expand the scale of intelligent computing power supply, and introduce more supporting policies for the development of benchmark enterprises.
In October 2023, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology issued the "Implementation Plan for Artificial Intelligence Computing Power Vouchers (2023-2025)". According to the implementation plan, Beijing supports software and information service enterprises and manufacturing enterprises to train and apply large industrial artificial intelligence models in the fields of industry, government services, medical care, finance, education, legal affairs, transportation, cultural tourism, scientific research, and urban management. The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology will provide enterprises with subsidy support for computing power vouchers to help enterprises reduce the cost of using intelligent computing power, and fully support enterprises to carry out the exploration and implementation of artificial intelligence large model applications.
Listed companies are actively deployed
According to the "China Accelerated Computing Server Market Semi-Annual Tracking Report" released by IDC, it is expected that by 2026, the scale of China's intelligent computing power will reach 12714eflops, the scale and growth rate are much higher than that of general computing power, with a compound growth rate of 47 from 2022 to 202658%。
In this context, listed companies seize the opportunity to open the layout of computing power.
Zhengtong Electronics announced on the evening of February 21 that the company plans to invest 100 million yuan with its own funds to set up a wholly-owned subsidiary in Wuhan to promote the construction and operation of the Wuhan data center project, carry out the operation of Internet data centers and computing power networks, and focus on the deployment of rendering computing power pools and artificial intelligence high-performance computing resource pools. Recently, the subsidiary has completed the industrial and commercial registration procedures.
Hongxin Electronics announced on the evening of February 18 that it intends to acquire 100% of Anlian's shares in cash. Anlian is an elite partner of NVIDIA in China, with many of NVIDIA's AI solution product capabilities, including computing power servers, data center professional GPU cards, software products, IB and Ethernet high-performance network products, etc.
Some companies have crossed over into the computing power track. On February 7, Anoqi, which is mainly engaged in dyes and additives, disclosed that it intends to acquire 100% of the shares of Shanghai Gencong for no more than 100 million yuan in cash. The company will enter the field of computing power services.
On the evening of February 27, Henglin Co., Ltd. announced that it plans to invest in the acquisition of Xinjiang Hengsheng Intelligent Computing Communication Intelligent Computing Technology Co., Ltd. Hengsheng Intelligent Computing has signed a high-end computing power server and networking accessories procurement contract worth nearly 400 million yuan with Nanjing Kunqian Computer Technology Co., Ltd. Henglin Co., Ltd. said that this investment is conducive to the company's rapid layout of computing power service business, build a computing service platform, and steadily improve competitiveness.
Wu Yanjing, chief analyst of China Galaxy** computer industry, said that with the continuous iterative optimization of SORA and the increase in the scale of the training dataset, the demand for computing power will show exponential explosive growth in the future, and he continues to be optimistic about the investment opportunities of upstream computing infrastructure.
According to Guosheng** research report, AI computing power is expected to become a popular investment direction in 2024.