By Li Panpan

(JW Insights) Jul 21 -- China's data amount is expected to increase from 7.6ZB to 48.6ZB by 2025, and the country will become the world's largest data power in the future. Its understanding of computing power should not be one-sided with emphasis only on computer power, but on storage power, too, remarked Chinese academician Ni Guangnan on July 20.

Ni Guangnan is a well-known academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and researcher at the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He addressed the 2023 World Semiconductor Conference and Nanjing International Semiconductor Expo held in Nanjing during July 19-21.

In his speech "Developing the Data Storage Industry and Seizing the Initiative in Competition," Ni pointed out that countries worldwide are speeding up the formulation of national data strategies, and storage technology has become the strategic focus of common attention. Generative AI development is driving up a boom in current AI computing power centers. China's data storage has huge potential and promising prospects in market demand.

A data power like China must be supported by a solid and advanced data storage industry. He proposed the concept of "generalized computing power," which combines storage, computing, and network. The three are indispensable, and only balanced allocation and development of them can give full play to the role of computing power.

He went into breakup of the market share of flash memory in the storage field - the global average is 41.3%, the United States is 56.4%, and China is 20.3%. China is only half of the worldwide average.

The proportion of advanced storage capacity using SSD in the computing power center: the United States is 52.8%, China is 24.7%, and China is only 46.7% of the United States.

Ni believes the time has come for SSDs to replace HDDs as Chinese storage machines and flash memory production capacity increase. He proposed following suggestions:

1. Standards come first for industry development. In order to promote better development of the industry, the "Guidelines for the Construction of Computing Power Center" is expected to release in the form of "industry standard" or "group standard," with the appropriate ratio range of "computing power" and "storage power" and that of SSD advanced storage capacity.

2. Policy guidance is needed to push SSD to replace HDD. In the government procurement and bidding of storage equipment, SSD should be given priority, and a single price index should not be used as the basis for bid evaluation. For storage equipment of vital infrastructure, the government should designate the use of Chinese SSD under policy guidance to promote the development of the domestic SSD industry.

3. Fair and just safety evaluation is needed. US supplier Micron failed to pass the safety review of the Chinese government, providing a development window for the Chinese storage industry. The industry should take this as an opportunity to attach importance to the security review of storage products, including supply chain security, information security, data security, etc.

4.Talents are needed first for this great cause. China should attach importance to the training of talents in the storage industry in colleges and universities. The storage industry is a technology-intensive industry, and product development requires many talents with storage technology R&D capabilities. Data shows that the current talent base does not match the size of China's entire storage industry and application market. There are over 60 universities in North America and over 20 universities in Western Europe conducting research in the field of storage. Currently, only over 10 universities in China are doing that.

5.Agglomeration of industries and collaborative research are needed. It is recommended to include data storage in the scope of the government designated information technology application innovation industries to cooperate with upstream and downstream industries to promote the development of the Chinese IT ecosystem. At the same time, China should set up a national scientific and technological research plan and a special project for data storage in related industry chains and organize domestic industry-university-research organizations to jointly tackle critical problems, to achieve risk control of the entire industry chain.

China should also establish a storage national laboratory, a national-level scientific and technological innovation platform to carry out cutting-edge and original technology research with global competitiveness.