China launches massive homegrown AI supercomputer cluster

China has officially launched its first fully homegrown 100,000-card artificial intelligence (AI) supercluster, marking a major leap in national computing infrastructure, according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

The system, known as the Dawning 8000 (Dengfeng), links to the Zhengzhou core node of the national supercomputing internet and combines scientific and intelligent computing power to meet emerging demands such as advanced materials, drug development, and AI model training.

The national supercomputing internet is a nationwide computing network which now aggregates over 3.5 million CPU cores and 250,000 GPU cards, serving more than 1.4 million registered users with over 7,300 applications, 1,500 adapted large language models and over 11.3 million visits per month on average.

Combining scientific computing and intelligent computing, the cluster represents a forward-looking deployment for potential new computing needs in the future.

"The new computing cluster delivers peak performance equal to humanity computing nonstop for 200 years. It now supports more than 300 tasks across 26 fields, including new materials, drug innovation, and artificial intelligence," said Bu Jingde, chief engineer of high-end computing at the National High-Performance Computer Engineering Technology Research Center.

China has designated eight national computing power hub nodes and plans to build 10 data center clusters under its East–West Computing Resources Transmission Project, or East Data, West Computing.

Alongside Zhengzhou, several other nodes are also undergoing a new round of capacity expansion.

The national computing power hub node in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has put a new domestically produced 10,000-card cluster into use to meet the intelligent computing needs for next-generation large language model development.

"Domestic large models are moving from hundreds of billions of parameters to trillions of parameters. Our new intelligent computing cluster can cut the training time for trillion-parameter large models from one year to around six months, while also providing full-chain checking and testing environments for large models," said Liu Zhijun, head of the planning and construction of China Telecom's Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Integrated Data Center.

China launches massive homegrown AI supercomputer cluster

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday addressed a welcome ceremony at the White House, expressing his readiness to work with U.S. President Donald Trump to steer the giant ship of China-US relationship on a steady course toward the future.

"Working together, we can lengthen the list of cooperation and shorten the list of issues," Xi said, calling on both sides to strengthen communication, cooperate with sincerity and coexist in peace.

Here are some of his key quotes from the address.

"Facing the changes in our world, in our times, and of historical significance today, China and the United States, as two major countries, shoulder a historic responsibility of advancing human development and progress."

"China-U.S. cooperation may not solve every problem in the world. But, without our cooperation, it would be hard to solve many of the world's problems."

"We do not need to avoid mentioning competition, but our competition should be a healthy one and should be kept within bounds. It should be a race of catching up with one another, not a wrestle in which one either wins or loses."

"Achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and making America great again can go hand in hand."

At the invitation of Trump, Xi is paying a state visit to the United States from Wednesday to Friday.

Key quotes from President Xi Jinping's address at White House welcome ceremony