AI Photo:VCG

Multiple local governments in China are revealing plans for new infrastructure projects featuring advanced technologies and next-generation networks, as part of broad efforts to boost local high-quality economic development and seek high-tech innovations.

In an action plan announced by Shanghai on Thursday, the municipal government proposed that the next round of infrastructure projects should be focused on intelligent computing power, large language models, data elements, blockchain, robots and other frontier technologies, while meeting requirements for green energy and low carbon.

The city aims to initially build a global "dual-gigabit city" marked by 5G and gigabit optical networks by the end of 2026. Satellite internet works featuring the "integration of sky and Earth" will be promoted.

The number of 5G base stations built and opened in Shanghai has reached 88,000. The proportion of 5G base stations among mobile phone base stations and the construction density of 5G base stations both rank first in China, official data showed.

In terms of computing power, the city will strive to create systems featuring ultra-large-scale intelligent computing power infrastructure that will be independent, and form domestic intelligent computing capabilities that support the training of large models with trillions of parameters, according to the action plan.

The city of Xiamen in East China's Fujian Province has also accelerated the pace of new infrastructure projects in the 2023-2025 period.

By 2025, a new infrastructure system that is complete, intelligent, efficient, low-carbon, safe and reliable will be basically built to effectively support the digital transformation of all economic and social fields and provide strong momentum for high-quality development, according to Xiamen's three-year action plan.

The city will create a one-millisecond ultra-low latency circle in the urban area of the data center network, and build up the Xiamen data port.

Accelerating the construction of new infrastructure projects has become an important means to expand effective investment and establish a new track in the digital economy, Pan Helin, joint director of the Research Center for Digital Economics and Financial Innovation affiliated with Zhejiang University's International Business School, told the Global Times on Thursday.

"It is also a key factor in promoting digital transformation and shaping new advantages for development," Pan noted, adding that innovative applications and products for new infrastructure facilities will cater to strategic emerging industries and the industries of the future.

As many local economies are being reshaped, those that can gain new growth driving forces from new industries will see benefits in economic output and industry chains, according to Pan.

China's GDP grew 4.9 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, data released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Wednesday, beating market expectations as the nation's economic growth gains momentum from effective stimulus measures.

Liu Dingding, an independent tech analyst, told the Global Times on Thursday that many local authorities have realized the significance of pre-planning their layout in high technology-related infrastructure, laying a solid foundation for expanding AI computing power.

"Computing power has become a new area of technological competition between China and the US, following the semiconductor field," said Liu.

Chinese authorities recently unveiled an action plan for the high-quality development of computing power infrastructure amid the country's push to foster its digital economy.

The country aims to achieve total computing power of more than 300 EFLOPS by 2025, according to the plan issued by authorities including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). 

EFLOPS is a unit of measurement for a computer's speed. One EFLOPS computing system can complete 1 quintillion floating-point operations per second. 

In August, the MIIT said that China's computing power had reached 197 EFLOPS, ranking second globally.