Voice of the Two Sessions: development of domestic CPU technology route, domestic AI chip, and computing power

During the Two Sessions, representatives of new quality productive forces, like domestic chips, AI chips, and domestic operating systems, once again became hot words among the suggestions of many entrepreneurs who are also representatives of the National People's Congress and many members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. This piece gathered the thoughts and suggestions of the committee members and representatives on "domestic chips and domestic substitutes".

Deng Zhonghan, member of the CPPCC National Committee and academician of the CAE Member（全国政协委员、中国工程院院士邓中翰）

How do we "overtake by changing lanes" with domestically produced chips?

In the past, world giants have relied on underlying technological innovation to drive the upgrading of standards and industrial ecosystems, ultimately forming their influence. So, for domestic chips to "overtake" by changing lanes, they must establish their own standard system in the technical field, and in addition, they need to leverage the power of industrial alliances to make more efforts in ecological construction. At the policy level, support should be given to domestic applications and domestic alternative procurement to help enterprises enhance their core competitiveness. (According to Xinhua News Agency interview video summary)

Chen Zhihua, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of KylinSoft （全国政协委员、麒麟软件有限公司党委书记、董事长谌志华）

Prioritize basic software and tap deeply into the computing power potential of domestic AI chips

Artificial intelligence, a typical representative of new quality productive forces in the information technology industry, has become a battleground for scientific and technological competition among countries. While constantly promoting new technologies, products, and industries, it also accelerates the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, achieving a new leap in productivity.

Prioritize basic software and tap deeply into the computing power potential of domestic AI chips

With the continuous emergence of demand for graphics processing and AI-accelerated computing, the domestic AI chip market has shown a "hundred flowers blooming" development trend, giving rise to various types of AI-accelerated products such as TPU, GPU, and GPGPU.

In response to the special situation of domestic computing power demand, Chen Zhihua suggests exploring the computing power potential of domestic AI chips through prioritizing basic software, to meet the computing power needs of artificial intelligence technology development.

One is to rely on leading professional operating system enterprises and cooperate deeply with various AI chip manufacturers to develop intelligent computing operating systems that are compatible with various domestic AI chips and training/inference frameworks, achieve heterogeneous computing power of intelligent computing clusters, flexibly schedule computing power of intelligent computing clusters, complete various training and inference tasks, and solve the problems of multiple factors affecting computing resources and insufficient supply of model training computing power. At the same time, we will develop a desktop intelligent operating system for AIPC and small models, implement the required AI functions on the terminal, meet application requirements, and solve the problems of insufficient cloud inference computing power and high inference costs.

The second is to rely on mature open source communities to form a development synergy, gather talents, technology, and funds from upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, encourage central enterprises in the industry to open up more artificial intelligence application scenarios, continuously improve and perfect domestic artificial intelligence computing solutions, and promote the rapid development of artificial intelligence applications.

Suggest increasing support for backbone operating system enterprises

After nearly 40 years of development, especially in recent years driven by independent innovation projects, domestic operating systems have made significant strides in security and stability, achieving a "million level" leap in ecological quantity and forming a series of mature application scenarios, including office, operation, and business. They have played an extremely important role in the transformation and upgrading of the party and government, finance, and related industries.

Chen Zhihua said that to develop new quality productive forces, the requirements for the operating system, the key basic software that supports and guarantees the wide application of digital technology, have been further improved. Therefore, it is necessary to accelerate the development of domestic operating systems and ensure that mainstream products transition from "usable" to "user-friendly" as soon as possible.

To further optimize resource allocation, improve industrial efficiency, accelerate the development of domestic operating systems, and seize the historic opportunities brought by the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation centred on digital technology, to better serve new quality productive forces, Chen Zhihua suggests focusing on the following two breakthroughs:

On the one hand, increasing support for backbone operating system enterprises and accelerating technological breakthroughs. Fully leverage the advantages of the new national system, firmly strive to improve and strengthen, rely on existing products that are technologically mature, safe and reliable, ecologically rich, and recognized by the market, continue to invest, concentrate efforts, and create a domestically produced operating system flagship product. Fully utilize the function of capital markets to serve national strategies and high-quality development of the real economy, encouraging the introduction of supply-side strategic investors to provide financial support and optimize equity structure, as well as the introduction of demand-side strategic investors to promote investment research integration and investment use integration; Promote industry regulatory authorities to establish a sound mechanism for mergers and acquisitions of operating system enterprises, to avoid problems such as service suspension caused by poor management of some enterprises.

On the other hand, reducing the difficulty of software, hardware, and application scenario development adaptation through product convergence to accelerate the achievement of ecological breakthroughs. One is to encourage enterprises with a relatively complete software and hardware industry chain to take the lead, collaborate with upstream software enterprises and demand side users to create benchmark scenarios and projects, and accelerate the resolution of the "last mile" problem of the application of independent innovative basic software technology in key infrastructure fields such as telecommunications, power, oil, transportation, and finance; Secondly, encourage upstream and downstream industries to develop and adapt based on domestic operating systems, timely introduce relevant policies, and provide certain rewards for the development and adaptation of key software and hardware products; The third is to encourage universities and research institutions to actively participate in the construction of open source communities, strengthen the cultivation of operating system talents through the establishment of open source software related courses, organization of open source activities, etc., promote the prosperity of open source culture, and serve the development of the industry. (Excerpt from 21st Century Business Herald)

Guo Yufeng, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and Deputy General Manager of Phytium （全国政协委员、飞腾信息技术有限公司副总经理郭御风）

Foreign giants have deep barriers, how can domestic CPUs break through?

The CPU is the core processor of computers and servers, and in the current geopolitical environment, the development of domestically produced CPUs has touched people's hearts. For a long time, to compete for the initiative in the development of CPUs, the domestic CPU field has formed a situation where multiple instruction set routes such as X86, ARM, RISC-V, LoongArch, and SW64 are advancing simultaneously, behind which are multiple CPU research and development enterprises such as Huawei, Phytium, Hygon, Zhaoxin, Loongson, and Sunway.

Regarding the development of domestic CPU technology routes, Guo Yufeng believes that the convergence of domestic CPU technology will definitely be a long-term direction and will eventually focus on it because different technology routes will cause many repeated investments or power dispersion. Since I proposed relevant proposals during last year's two sessions, it has been a year since the market began to form agglomeration effects. In July 2023, Huawei and China Electronics announced the merger of Kunpeng Ecology and PKS Ecology to jointly create a "Pengteng" ecosystem that supports both Kunpeng and Feiteng processors. This means that Kunpeng and Feiteng, belonging to the ARM route, are beginning to integrate into ecological construction. "The merger of" Kunpeng&PKS "! China Electronics and Huawei officially announce the joint construction of the" Pengteng "ecosystem, what is the intention?"

In Guo Yufeng's view, the ultimate convergence direction of the technological route still depends on market selection, because only by obtaining market validation and recognition can success be achieved. However, he also pointed out that if it is only handed over to the market, the process of technological convergence will be very long, so a new national system should be implemented, and the government can provide some guidance. "In short, I believe that the trend of technological convergence in the information and innovation industry will continue to advance."

Regarding the ecosystem of domestic chips, Guo Yufeng said, "As the bottom of the information industry chain, only by continuously enriching the ecosystem of domestic chips can we demonstrate technological advantages.". So we not only need to do a good job in technical products, but also pay attention to ecological construction, so that the industry and ecological flowers on domestic basic software and hardware can become more dense and prosperous, to further enhance the competitiveness of 'China Chip' in the international market, and also enhance the resilience of our industrial and supply chains

What are the difficulties in strengthening the domestic CPU ecosystem and catching up with the first movers? In Guo Yufeng's view, one of the difficulties is the barriers to the traditional foreign ecosystem. "This is the biggest difficulty, and this barrier makes it impossible for different domestic technology routes to inherit and reuse historical assets. Redevelopment will also make the historical burden heavy. On the other hand, the foreign ecosystem is already relatively mature, so it not only has historical assets, but also is moving forward quickly. In the process of making up for lessons, they are still moving forward.". If not handled properly during this process, the gap between us and them will become increasingly large. It's like rolling a snowball, the bigger the snowball, the faster it rolls, and the smaller it gets, the harder it gets to roll

The third reason may be related to talent cultivation. Guo Yufeng mentioned in his proposal for this year's two sessions that domestic universities' curriculum systems, teaching computers, electronic classrooms, and other infrastructure are still mainly based on foreign software and hardware environments, such as Intel processors, Windows operating systems, Oracle databases, etc. However, many key industries have generally begun to use domestically developed software and hardware products, resulting in high labour and time costs for enterprises to train campus recruitment employees systematically.

How can domestic CPUs find a way to break the deadlock? Guo Yufeng believes that we need to take the mainstream ecological technology route. "Because you expect to establish the industrial ecology in a relatively immature domestic technology system, the success rate is still very low." On the other hand, we need to take the open technology route. "Ecology is not something that one company does, we must attract more ecological partners to come and build it together, to have vitality and grow and grow."

Cao Peng, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and Chairman of the Technical Committee of JD Group （全国政协委员、京东集团技术委员会主席曹鹏）

Accelerate the development of new quality productive forces, promote the deep integration of domestically developed technologies and industrial development

Cao Peng suggests seizing the opportunity to develop large-scale models, encouraging domestic GPUs to adapt to domestic computing power scheduling software through policies, building an independent and controllable intelligent computing foundation, and supporting the intelligent development of the industry.

Cao Peng found in practice that domestic substitution is often static, lacking forward-looking planning, and disconnected from the industry. Faced with unpredictable external factors and the continuous deepening of the domestic digital economy, developing new quality productive forces requires increasingly urgent autonomy and controllability of core technologies. This means that key technologies must achieve independent research and development to ensure the country's development and security.

Since the release of ChatGPT, many domestic technology companies have been competing to release large model products, accelerating industry development. Subsequently, the American regulation of chips continued to escalate.

“Computing power is the foundation for training large models, and it is urgent to seek domestic alternatives to large model computing power integration facilities. Only with autonomous and controllable computing power bases can domestic large models gain an advantage in this AI competition. In addition, software-hardware collaboration can maximize the role of intelligent computing power bases. For example, to improve the efficiency of computing power bases, both GPUs and software for computing power scheduling should be considered. It is recommended to seize the opportunity of developing large-scale models, encourage domestic GPUs to adapt to domestic computing power scheduling software through policies, build an independent and controllable intelligent computing foundation, and support the intelligent development of the industry.” Cao Peng said.

In fact, in recent years, the policy level has put forward specific requirements for independent technology research and development, gradually establishing a development path of "pilot first, then comprehensive". "However, through our own practice and research, we have found that there is still a common problem of disconnection between 'localization' and 'industrial digital upgrading and transformation'. Some localization measures have not truly integrated into industrial practice and have not created industrial value. At the same time, there is a situation of static replacement in localization, that is, there is no planning for future upgrades, resulting in a lack of foresight and development potential in localization." Cao Peng said.

Localization construction should not only achieve true substitution for real use, but also actively build and leverage the value of new quality productivity, achieve continuous breakthroughs in product technology, gradually improve the industrial ecosystem, and gradually expand industry applications.

He believes that to develop new quality productive forces, enterprises urgently need to solve the bottleneck problem of key technologies from the source and bottom, accelerate breakthroughs in key technology research and development, improve their core competitiveness, and drive technological innovation with industrial value.

“Especially in the wave of AI technology innovation represented by big models, on the one hand, it is necessary to establish a positive cycle of independent research and development and industrial development complementing each other, and on the other hand, it is also necessary to take advantage of the opportunity of big models to implement key measures for self-developed technologies to move from static substitution to system planning and establishment, and to step out of the original path of self-developed technologies. Suggest using policy guidance, model promotion, and typical case studies to promote physical industries and technology service enterprises to prioritize the industrial value of localization, and form a solid support for the industry with new quality productive forces.” He said.

Cao Peng suggests: "Through policy guidance, standard formulation, and other means, avoid domestic substitution from traditional centralized to domestic centralized replacement; suggest promoting the adoption of cloud-native, containerized, and distributed new digital infrastructure to achieve technological innovation and upgrading while domestic substitution."

“Chain owner enterprises should lead in promoting domestic technology, transform from leaders to promoters, and participate in formulating industry standards. It is recommended to encourage chain owner enterprises to achieve domestic technology application in their key businesses while promoting domestic independent research and development technology substitution in the upstream and downstream of the ecological chain, thereby promoting the prosperity of the industrial ecosystem; At the same time, it is recommended to provide direct policy and subsidy support to chain owners' enterprises, allowing them to choose technology service partners more openly and efficiently.” Cao Peng said.

Feng Xingya, National People's Congress representative and General Manager of GAC Group （全国人大代表、广汽集团总经理冯兴亚）

Promote the development of the chip industry and achieve an independent and controllable industrial chain

During the 2024 National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Feng Xingya, a National People's Congress representative and General Manager of GAC Group, brought five suggestions and one proposal on the development of intelligent driving regulations and standards, focusing on specific topics such as new energy vehicle power battery standards, integration of new energy vehicles and the power grid, development of energy-saving vehicles, development of automotive grade chip industry chain, and automobile exports.

While the ecological layout of new energy vehicles is advancing rapidly, the chip industry in key technology areas still faces a bottleneck problem. The independent and controllable ability of the industry has become a key factor affecting the healthy development of the automotive industry. Although many breakthroughs have been made, there are still many issues that need to be addressed in the domestic chip industry. In response to the bottleneck of the automotive industry, Feng Xingya proposed to vigorously improve the application rate of domestic chips, accelerate the guidance of industry transformation from a policy perspective, and accelerate the improvement of supporting measures for automotive chips when attending the National People's Congress for the first time last year. At this year's two sessions, in response to the shortcomings in domestic automotive chip design technology, overall backwardness in core manufacturing, insufficient coverage of chip applications, and incomplete ecology, he also proposed suggestions to overcome design shortcomings, improve manufacturing capabilities, strengthen automotive applications, and improve application support, reflecting a high level of attention to the localization of chip applications.

Li Jiajie, member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Chairman of Hong Kong Henderson Land Development Group, and Chairman of Towngas （全国政协常委、香港恒基兆业集团主席、香港中华煤气有限公司主席李家杰）

Taking RISC-V technology as a breakthrough point, increasing support for high-quality domestic chip enterprises

In the proposal on accelerating the breakthrough of the bottleneck in the development of the chip industry, Li Jiajie stated that the chip industry is a fundamental, pioneering, and strategic industry that is related to economic and social development and is also the focus of global technological competition in the digital economy era. In recent years, China's chip industry has developed rapidly, but it has also presented some obvious problems that hinder the development of the industry, including the gap between the independent controllability and original ability of core technologies and the international advanced level, the fragmentation of chip instruction sets leading to a large amount of repeated investment, insufficient matching of industrial factors leading to a shortage of high-end talents and talent outflow, and incomplete innovation chains in the industrial chain.

“As a rapidly changing industry, our strategy of exchanging market for technology is no longer effective in developing the chip industry. It is urgent to establish an independent technology research and innovation system”. In this regard, Li Jiajie suggests strengthening public service support, increasing support for high-quality domestic chip enterprises, exploring integrated circuit equipment leasing business, improving public service platforms, etc., reducing enterprise costs, and encouraging technological innovation.

Secondly, it is recommended that the integration of RISC-V open-source instructions into industry standards be promoted, and relevant domestic enterprises should be encouraged to participate in the discussion and formulation of standard specifications. It may be considered for piloting in the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area, based on the RISC-V open source instruction set, to develop industry standards for the Bay Area. Furthermore, it is recommended that policies be formulated and improved for introducing chip-related talents, especially targeting high-end chip talents in the industry that are lacking. In some regions, special chip professional talent visas should be piloted to facilitate the introduction of excellent overseas talents by enterprises. At the same time, we should encourage collaborative cooperation among multiple fields and entities and, through national guidance, encourage close cooperation between industry, academia, research and application, improve the professional service ecosystem of the chip industry, and accelerate the construction of cross-regional industrial incubation carriers.

Miao Wei, National People's Congress Representative and Senior Vice President of ZTE （全国人大代表、中兴通讯高级副总裁苗伟）

Strengthen support and overall guidance for domestic GPU manufacturers

During this year's two sessions, Miao Wei, a National People's Congress representative and Senior Vice President of ZTE, plans to propose one proposal and eight suggestions.

In terms of computing power infrastructure construction, Miao Wei suggests establishing cross-regional collaborative computing power construction support policies, guiding social capital and financial institutions to actively participate in computing power infrastructure and technology research and development, while strengthening support and overall guidance for domestic GPU manufacturers, to promote the high-quality development of computing power infrastructure, enhance the supply capacity of intelligent computing power, and further promote the vigorous development of the digital economy.