China to boost its state-owned compute performance by 30% by 2025, plans to hit 300 exaflops

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Big ambition raises some big questions.

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(Image credit: Inspur)

China is set to increase its national computing power by 30% by 2025, growing from 230 ExaFLOPS to 300 ExaFLOPS, reports The Register. This ambitious plan involves significant advancements in technology, though for now it leaves more questions than answers as gaining an additional 70 ExaFLOPS of compute power is not an easy thing to do.

Currently, China has over 8.1 million data center racks providing 230 ExaFLOPS of processing power, according to data revealed at the Global Digital Economy Conference 2024 by Wang Xiaoli from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology. 

China's plan is to reach 300 ExaFLOPS by 2025, which is a considerable increase when we look back over previous growth rates. China's compute power grew from 180 ExaFLOPS in 2022 to 197 ExaFLOPS in August 2023, which means that the new goal will require a significant acceleration. Unfortunately, Wang Xiaoli did not say how China is going to add 70 ExaFLOPS of compute horsepower in less than a year from now.  

How China plans to add 70 ExaFLOPS of compute capacity amid sanctions by the U.S. that require companies like AMD, Intel, and Nvidia as well as their partners to get an export license to sell their high-performance processors or servers to Chinese entities, both public and private, is a big question. The country can barely produce its own high-performance processors, as contract chipmakers like Semiconductor Manufacturing International Co. (SMIC) cannot procure advanced wafer fab tools as well. 

China's plan to enhance its computing capacity aims to support broader AI deployment and economic transformation, particularly in rural areas, which means that the plan is important for the whole country. This increase in compute power is expected to drive significant technological and economic benefits across China, but, again, if China manages to get appropriate hardware. 

But while it is problematic for Chinese companies to get high-performance computing processors and servers, they can get energy storage technologies. Yovole Network, a Shanghai-based cloud computing data center service provider, has partnered with Tesla to implement its Megapack energy storage technology. Yovole Network is also incorporating advanced technologies such as hydrogen energy, photovoltaic storage, indirect evaporative cooling, and liquid cooling in its data centers, which indicates that it has some massive compute horsepower inside. These technologies are essential for supporting the increased processing power while managing energy efficiency. 

Anton Shilov
Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

6 Comments Comment from the forums
  • zsydeepsky
    what is this...a repeat of an old news from tomshardware itself? even from the same author?
    the same news already appeared back in 2023:
    China Wants 300 ExaFLOPS of Compute Power by 2025
    and funny that was the first time I even commented on tomshardware. what a deja vu.

    and the most disappointing quote from this old "news":
    How China plans to add 70 ExaFLOPS of compute capacity amid sanctions by the U.S. that require companies like AMD, Intel, and Nvidia as well as their partners to get an export license to sell their high-performance processors or servers to Chinese entities, both public and private, is a big question.
    man, it could be a question back in 2023, but we are already in the mid of 2024 now, it's bluntly clear that China can fully achieve this goal by its domestic chips such as Huawei Ascend 910B which is on par with Nvidia A100, not mentioning that their incoming 910C which would step further to be on par with H100.

    I guess...the thing I learnt from this revamped news is this:
    back in 2023 Oct, when this plan was first reported, China had 200 ExaFlops compute power.
    now in 2024 July it had 230 ExaFlops. that's 30 ExaFlops in 9 months.
    with this pace, another 21 months (2026 Apr) then China will meet its goal.
    with improvements in chip designs or manufacturing, then China will probably meet its goal, before the end of 2025.



    edit:
    just realized that I can actually use these numbers to estimate how many GPUs China can manufacture.
    so by Nvidia, A100's Tensor Core provides 312T FP16 compute power, so let's assume Ascend 910B can achieve 300T.
    30 ExaFlops equals to 100,000 Ascend 910B, in 9 months, so ~133,333 per year.

    by comparison, Nvidia sold 550,000 H100 in 2023 :
    https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-to-sell-550000-h100-compute-gpus-in-2023-report
    the number does add up and makes sense.
    Reply
  • thisisaname
    I wonder how much more electricity it is going to need to power that increase?
    Reply
  • zsydeepsky
    thisisaname said:
    I wonder how much more electricity it is going to need to power that increase?
    interestingly, the same question was asked last time this news appeared.

    A100's TDP by Nvidia's spec sheet is ~350W.
    so 100,000 of A100 leads to 35,000,000W (35MW), we can double or triple it to also include other power consumptions for CPUs & heat management, which means <100 MW.

    let's say 100MW, if this system runs 24 hours with 100% utility, for each year it consumes 100MW * 24 * 365 = 876GWh or 0.876 TWh

    since this new demand emerged in 9 months, so if China keeps adding the same systems at the same pace, then it needs to provide an extra 0.876 / 9 * 12 = 1.168 TWh electricity to power them.

    On average, China adds ~250 TWh of energy generation capacity per year, so this newly added system occupies < 0.5% of China's newly added energy capacity.

    fun part:
    some other nations' annual electricity generation numbers(2022), as a comparison:
    Germany: 582 TWh
    France: 469 TWh
    UK: 325 TWh
    Italy: 279 TWh

    yes, China basically adds electricity generation capacity equivalent to an entire Italy, per year. furthermore, in 2021, China set its record and added 750 TWh of electricity generation capacity, which is ~ 125% of Germany.
    Total electricity generation - Our World in Data
    Reply
  • thisisaname
    zsydeepsky said:
    interestingly, the same question was asked last time this news appeared.

    A100's TDP by Nvidia's spec sheet is ~350W.
    so 100,000 of A100 leads to 35,000,000W (35MW), we can double or triple it to also include other power consumptions for CPUs & heat management, which means <100 MW.

    let's say 100MW, if this system runs 24 hours with 100% utility, for each year it consumes 100MW * 24 * 365 = 876GWh or 0.876 TWh

    since this new demand emerged in 9 months, so if China keeps adding the same systems at the same pace, then it needs to provide an extra 0.876 / 9 * 12 = 1.168 TWh electricity to power them.

    On average, China adds ~250 TWh of energy generation capacity per year, so this newly added system occupies < 0.5% of China's newly added energy capacity.

    fun part:
    some other nations' annual electricity generation numbers(2022), as a comparison:
    Germany: 582 TWh
    France: 469 TWh
    UK: 325 TWh
    Italy: 279 TWh

    yes, China basically adds electricity generation capacity equivalent to an entire Italy, per year. furthermore, in 2021, China set its record and added 750 TWh of electricity generation capacity, which is ~ 125% of Germany.
    Total electricity generation - Our World in Data
    Nice data, I wonder how much of the increase is renewable vs carbon (Coal, Oil or Gas)?
    Reply
  • zsydeepsky
    thisisaname said:
    Nice data, I wonder how much of the increase is renewable vs carbon (Coal, Oil or Gas)?
    OurWorldData also provided a detailed breakdown:
    Share of energy consumption by source, China
    Coal still provides half of China's energy, but its share is fast declining. In fact, China is now the largest renewable energy source in the world, in recent years, China has added ~550TWh (equivalent to the entire Germany) of renewable energy generation capacity per year.

    with those aggressive investments, China leads growth of renewable energy capacity in 2023China added 55% of all renewable generation additions in 2023, more than the rest of the world combined, the report noted. Beijing overtook Europe on an energy per capita basis for the first time, it added.

    therefore, another unexpected result: China may have peaked its carbon emissions already:
    Analysis: China’s emissions set to fall in 2024 after record growth in clean energyfor the first time – the rate of low-carbon energy expansion is now sufficient to not only meet, but exceed the average annual increase in China’s demand for electricity overall.

    and I found it amusing that at exactly this moment, we start to hear critics/rants of China's "over-capacity" in solar panels & wind turbines & batteries. really made me wonder.
    Reply
  • thisisaname
    zsydeepsky said:
    OurWorldData also provided a detailed breakdown:
    Share of energy consumption by source, China
    Coal still provides half of China's energy, but its share is fast declining. In fact, China is now the largest renewable energy source in the world, in recent years, China has added ~550TWh (equivalent to the entire Germany) of renewable energy generation capacity per year.

    with those aggressive investments, China leads growth of renewable energy capacity in 2023China added 55% of all renewable generation additions in 2023, more than the rest of the world combined, the report noted. Beijing overtook Europe on an energy per capita basis for the first time, it added.

    therefore, another unexpected result: China may have peaked its carbon emissions already:
    Analysis: China’s emissions set to fall in 2024 after record growth in clean energyfor the first time – the rate of low-carbon energy expansion is now sufficient to not only meet, but exceed the average annual increase in China’s demand for electricity overall.

    and I found it amusing that at exactly this moment, we start to hear critics/rants of China's "over-capacity" in solar panels & wind turbines & batteries. really made me wonder.
    If you can store your extra (not needed right "now") produced from solar panels & wind turbines does it count as "over-capacity"?
    Reply