Why is China building AI centres on the roof of the world?
Yajiang-1, a cutting-edge computing centre perched in the cradle of Tibetan civilisation along the roaring Yarlung Tsangbo River, is up and running as part of China's plan to transform the so-called roof of the world into a strategic frontier for sustainable supercomputing.
The facility, the first major hub of the '
Eastern Data, Western Computing ' project on the Tibetan Plateau, takes advantage of the region's extreme environment to make massive artificial intelligence (AI) training tasks – amounting to millions of processing hours a year – radically more energy efficient.
China plans to harness the natural cold, abundant solar power and innovative waste heat recovery to build more AI centres like Yajiang-1, which sits at an altitude of 3,600 metres (11,800 feet).
10:41
How Hangzhou's 'Six Little Dragons' built a new Chinese tech hub
How Hangzhou's 'Six Little Dragons' built a new Chinese tech hub
Located in Shannan, a city in
Tibet autonomous region, the centre's initial phase will deploy more than 256 advanced computing servers, delivering a total processing power of 2,000 petaflops – a measure of floating-point operations per second.
The facility, which was jointly developed by Tibet Yarlung Zangbo Computing Technology Company and the local government, aims to pioneer high-altitude digital economies.
'Yajiang-1 will catalyse frontier innovation across AI training, autonomous driving, smart healthcare and plateau ecosystem monitoring,' said Han Shuangshuang, general manager of the computing firm, in an interview with Science and Technology Daily published on June 20.
'Multiple partnerships are already established to advance these fields,' he told the official newspaper of China's Ministry of Science and Technology.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South China Morning Post
41 minutes ago
- South China Morning Post
Video teases new Chinese blackout bomb that can knock out enemy power stations
China's state broadcaster posted a video on Thursday featuring what appeared to be a new type of graphite bomb that it said could knock out enemy power stations and cause a 'complete loss of electricity' across a targeted area. A social media channel run by CCTV shared an animated video showing the weapon being launched from a land-based vehicle before ejecting 90 cylinder-shaped submunitions. These canisters bounced upon impact before detonating mid-air, dispersing fine, chemically treated carbon filaments designed to short-circuit high-voltage power infrastructure The weapon aims to disrupt enemy command and control systems by triggering widespread electrical outages over an area of at least 10,000 square metres (107,639 sq ft), according to the channel. CCTV cited an account from the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) , a contractor affiliated with the Ministry of National Defence. However, the broadcaster offered no details about the weapon's designation or its status. It referred to the weapon as 'a mysterious type of domestically made missile'. It remains unclear which stage of development it has reached, or if it has been deployed by the Chinese military.
South China Morning Post
2 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Southeast Asia increasingly finds China more reliable and predictable
As a nation, China sees itself as a rational, peaceful and stabilising force in an increasingly dangerous and fragmented global order. While such national characteristics may be relative and are mostly in the eyes of the beholder, they seem to be less debatable when compared with the erratic and unpredictable actions and policy flip-flops coming out of the White House of Donald Trump. In his first official visit last week, Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong was given the same message Xi Jinping has been sending to other Southeast Asian leaders during the latter's tour of the region earlier this year. Singapore and China together need to 'stand on the right side of history', Xi says, and push for an equitable multipolar world against 'unilateral bullying' and 'tariff abuse'. That was obviously a reference to the Trump administration's 'reciprocal tariffs', which have especially irked Singapore because of its trade deficit with the United States. In April, Wong criticised the US tariffs as 'not actions one does to a friend', so Xi's message was calibrated to appeal to the Singaporean sense of unfairness. It's often been claimed that, unlike the transatlanticism of Nato and the democratic governance of the European Union, Asean countries that collectively account for most of the economic activities of Southeast Asia lack a cohesive ideology. But despite their differences in government, culture and language, they do share some strong beliefs; that is, in growth, prosperity, pragmatism and peaceful coexistence over sabre-rattling. These are the same values to which China has long been committed. Also, it's long been debated whether Asean countries such as Singapore will end up having to choose between China and the US in their increasingly bitter rivalry. Asean's common response has been that they can be friends with everyone.
South China Morning Post
2 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong striving to create favourable environment for stablecoins: Paul Chan
Hong Kong authorities will strive to create a conducive environment for the wide-ranging application of stablecoins in a bid to provide practical help for businesses to resolve cross-border payment issues, the city's finance chief has said. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po on Sunday reaffirmed the government's efforts in applying fintech to resolve long-standing 'pain points' such as slow and costly cross-border payments, highlighting new stablecoin laws set to take effect on August 1. 'Stablecoins can offer a cost-effective alternative outside the traditional financial system and have the potential to revolutionise payment and capital market activities, including cross-border payments,' Chan said in his weekly blog. 'The government and financial regulators will strive to foster a favourable market environment … to encourage issuers to expand stablecoin applications into various scenarios. We aim to help resolve practical pain points for businesses and everyday citizens alike.' Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency backed by a reference asset, usually fiat currencies such as the US dollar and the Hong Kong dollar. Chan made the pledge after the government unveiled a policy blueprint on new digital assets last week, with the city seeking to cement its role as a global cryptocurrency hub while serving as a test bed for Beijing's fintech aspirations.
