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Shanghai Opens Artificial Intelligence Data Centre

Shanghai’s Lin-gang Free Trade Zone has just put into operation what could be one of Asia’s largest data centres. What makes this data hub unique though is not its size but that it employs Artificial Intelligence (AI). Simply put, it should provide for a faster more efficient sustainable operation.

By conventional standards, this data centre is large. It covers a total area of ​​130,000 square meters. Capacity-wise, it can hold 5,000 computer racks. Built with US$880 million worth of investments, the infrastructure has a designed computing capacity of 3.74 exaFLOPS, which can easily be in the running as one of the strongest among data centres in the region.

AI computing will be the most efficient method through the use of a high-speed CPU accelerator in a data centre.

– Li Genguo, Director, Shanghai Supercomputer Center

AI can certainly turn things up. One of the most obvious advantages of this AI data centre is its overwhelming speed. As the AI model can be trained with 100 billion parameters, it can provide millions of business models for all types of companies.

All that can mean the availability of greater computing power for the industry. Already, it is expected that companies in the bio-medicine and automotive industries will benefit most from the data centre. That’s because industries like bio-medicines and physics need AI to help them explore the next step, an industry expert noted.

Moreover, it’s not just speed that will be directly enhanced by AI. As this data centre can check its power use status better, that can translate to greater savings in energy. To note, traditional algorithm methods used in data centres have high energy costs. However, AI computing can be much more environmentally friendly.

With an electricity consumption of 2000 TWh globally – approximately 10 per cent of the world’s electricity production – the ICT sector is one of the largest electricity consumers on the planet. The trend is accelerating: consumption is estimated to have increased to just over 20 per cent by 2030. One of the main reasons is that electricity consumption in data centres is expected to quadruple during that time.

While there are many individual aspects that make up a data centre, the two major components are power and cooling. Optimise those buckets and a data centre will run more efficiently in terms of performance, cost, and operation.

Learning how to optimise data centre environments in the past only accounted for certain variables and was difficult to do in real-time. AI has allowed for dynamic optimisation, improving data centre efficiency immensely.

For power, AI allows data centres to track the real power draw of individual data processing units, allowing teams to define and locate where power is being diverted from the critical and essential loads. Like with cooling motor amperage, AI allows teams to more quickly set a benchmark for optimal performance and know within seconds when a piece of equipment isn’t functioning as intended.

The establishment of such large-scale AI data centres is crucial to China’s self-design abilities in the AI ​​industry. A China Academy of Sciences report predicts the value of the country’s core AI industry will reach more than US$63 billion by the end of 2025.

Shanghai, of course, is at the heart of it all. Recently, it used another emerging technology to attract global talent. As reported on OpenGov Asia, China’s richest city used the metaverse to recruit ICT talents from all over the world.

That gives the idea of how much digital transformation has moved China’s economy forward. It’s affecting just about every sector of its society. Even rural farms that used to be governed by traditional methods are making the most of smart agriculture reaping more bountiful harvests in the process — with diminishing effort.

PARTNER

Qlik’s vision is a data-literate world, where everyone can use data and analytics to improve decision-making and solve their most challenging problems. A private company, Qlik offers real-time data integration and analytics solutions, powered by Qlik Cloud, to close the gaps between data, insights and action. By transforming data into Active Intelligence, businesses can drive better decisions, improve revenue and profitability, and optimize customer relationships. Qlik serves more than 38,000 active customers in over 100 countries.

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CTC Global Singapore, a premier end-to-end IT solutions provider, is a fully owned subsidiary of ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC) and ITOCHU Corporation.

Since 1972, CTC has established itself as one of the country’s top IT solutions providers. With 50 years of experience, headed by an experienced management team and staffed by over 200 qualified IT professionals, we support organizations with integrated IT solutions expertise in Autonomous IT, Cyber Security, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure, Workplace Modernization and Professional Services.

Well-known for our strengths in system integration and consultation, CTC Global proves to be the preferred IT outsourcing destination for organizations all over Singapore today.

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Planview has one mission: to build the future of connected work. Our solutions enable organizations to connect the business from ideas to impact, empowering companies to accelerate the achievement of what matters most. Planview’s full spectrum of Portfolio Management and Work Management solutions creates an organizational focus on the strategic outcomes that matter and empowers teams to deliver their best work, no matter how they work. The comprehensive Planview platform and enterprise success model enables customers to deliver innovative, competitive products, services, and customer experiences. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with locations around the world, Planview has more than 1,300 employees supporting 4,500 customers and 2.6 million users worldwide. For more information, visit www.planview.com.

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SIRIM is a premier industrial research and technology organisation in Malaysia, wholly-owned by the Minister​ of Finance Incorporated. With over forty years of experience and expertise, SIRIM is mandated as the machinery for research and technology development, and the national champion of quality. SIRIM has always played a major role in the development of the country’s private sector. By tapping into our expertise and knowledge base, we focus on developing new technologies and improvements in the manufacturing, technology and services sectors. We nurture Small Medium Enterprises (SME) growth with solutions for technology penetration and upgrading, making it an ideal technology partner for SMEs.

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HashiCorp provides infrastructure automation software for multi-cloud environments, enabling enterprises to unlock a common cloud operating model to provision, secure, connect, and run any application on any infrastructure. HashiCorp tools allow organizations to deliver applications faster by helping enterprises transition from manual processes and ITIL practices to self-service automation and DevOps practices. 

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IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

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