China’s first provincial‑level AI4S (AI for Science) public computing center was officially unveiled on August 30 in Nanjing, the capital of East China’s Jiangsu Province. The center was initiated by Jiangsu Provincial Govemment State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and multiple other provincial departments, and constructed and operated by Jiangsu Data Group (JSDG).
The center, Jiangsu’s first provincial‑level public computing platform dedicated to scientific research, closely aligns with the province’s science and technology innovation strategies. It is expected to deliver inclusive, flexible, efficient, secure and reliable AI4S computing services to universities, research institutes, public medical and health institutions and innovation‑oriented market entities across the province.
The center, which has approximately 700 petaflops of large-scale computing resources, has launched 223 computing products on the market. By integrating domestic and advanced heterogeneous computing resources and leveraging Jiangsu’s unified monitoring and scheduling platform, it has achieved unified management, scheduling and delivery of diverse heterogeneous computing resources, which can support various basic research projects. The center has reached out to multiple entities, including universities, research institutes and provincial‑level state‑owned enterprises, to learn about their demands.
The center will integrate a general‑purpose model repository, a high‑quality dataset and many model training and inference tools to offer one‑stop services covering model development, training, fine‑tuning and deployment. Such quick and easy access to tools, models and computing resources will significantly facilitate AI4S application and speed up the translation of research findings into practical outcomes.
The center will also foster in‑depth collaboration with enterprises, universities and research institutes. By cooperating with Jiangsu’s universities, research institutes and key laboratories, it will advance model development and scenario incubation in crucial sectors, such as biomedicine, new materials and intelligent manufacturing.
According to JSDG executives, the center will set up a specialized AI4S operation team and continuously improve the entire service system that covers operation, maintenance, technical assistance and partnership building, to ensure that researchers can access, afford and properly utilize relevant resources.
With the opening of China’s first provincial‑level AI4S public computing center, Jiangsu will capitalize on its strengths in industry and scientific research to explore new approaches and provide new solutions for the development of AI4S infrastructure nationwide.
(Executive editor: Zuo Shihan)
