Li Xing, deputy director of CERNET Network Center: We must meet the challenges of the artificial intelligence era with innovation
2024-08-09
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Beijing News Shell Finance (Reporter Bai Jinlei) 2024 marks the 30th anniversary of my country's full-function access to the international Internet. In a special commentary written for Beijing News, Li Xing, deputy director of the CERNET Network Center and professor at Tsinghua University, said that this year marks the 30th anniversary of my country's full-function access to the international Internet, and the 30th anniversary of the construction of CERNET, my country's first nationwide Internet backbone network. As an important source of China's Internet, CERNET has achieved a leap from following the start, catching up with innovation, to breakthroughs and leadership in the past 30 years, which can be seen as a microcosm of my country's Internet development.
In the article, he also made two suggestions: First, the conquest of core Internet technologies must rely on innovation. In his opinion, my country still has little say in the field of Internet architecture and core key technologies, especially in the formulation of international Internet standards. "If China wants to win more say, it must participate more in the formulation of Internet standards and make greater contributions in the field of core Internet technologies, which requires innovative thinking," said Li Xing.
Second, in the face of the era of artificial intelligence, we must meet challenges with innovation. "To achieve technological innovation, we must leave room for mistakes and trial and error, which is the only way to success. If you do it seriously but the result is failure, you can conclude that this road is blocked, which is a very valuable experience. Many Internet applications are evolving through continuous trial and error," said Li Xing.
Li Xing is one of the pioneers of Internet research and construction in my country. As a core technical expert, he participated in the design and construction of the national Internet China Education and Research Computer Network CERNET, and presided over the establishment of my country's first IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6) test bed CERNET-6BONE. The stateless IPv4/IPv6 translation technology IVI, which he led to invent, broke through the technical bottleneck of the smooth transition from IPv4 (Internet Protocol Version 4) to IPv6, and played an important leading role in the global Internet's transition to an IPv6 single stack. He was selected into the International Internet Hall of Fame in 2021.
From user to builder
In 1982, Li Xing graduated from the Department of Electronic Engineering of Tsinghua University and went to the United States to study. However, Li Xing's first contact with the Internet had nothing to do with hobbies and majors, but came from the need for communication. In order to save international phone charges, Li Xing began to use the global computer network communication tool UUCP. UUCP requires users to manually set the route of emails, and from then on, Li Xing began his Internet journey.
After 1990, the number of Internet users increased, and various online magazines emerged. Li Xing's school had an agreement with Apple, which allowed it to purchase Apple's Macintosh computers at a price lower than the market price. But at that time, Macintosh did not have a Chinese operating system, so it was impossible to read Chinese online magazines. In his spare time, he used C to write a free software "MacHanzi (Mac Chinese characters)", which can read Chinese online magazines in simplified and traditional Chinese characters without a Chinese operating system. This software entered the top 50 of the free Macintosh download software rankings of Stanford University in the United States, making him famous among Chinese students studying abroad.
In 1991, Li Xing returned to his motherland and worked at Tsinghua University. The thing he was most uncomfortable with was the lack of Internet, so he called for the construction of China's Internet. At the end of 1993, the demonstration project of China's first nationwide Internet backbone network, China Education and Research Network CERNET, was launched, and Li Xing was recruited to join the project. In 1994, Li Xing, who was in his 30s, joined the newly established Tsinghua University Network Center from the Department of Electronics, completing the transition from an Internet user to the Internet, and also forged an indissoluble bond with the Internet.
The CERNET network center is located at Tsinghua University. As CERNET was being built, Li Xing also went from being a user to a professional researcher. Until now, he still writes his own programs. There is a small computer room in Li Xing's office, and he even built his own private cloud.
In the above-mentioned special commentary, Li Xing described the significance of CERNET's first ten years as follows: it cultivated China's first batch of Internet users, the first batch of Internet researchers and builders, the first batch of Internet entrepreneurs, and the first batch of Internet applications, and created many firsts in China's Internet history: the first electronic magazine, the first large-scale BBS site, the first generation of Internet search engines, etc., which greatly promoted the technological development and application exploration of my country's Internet and helped China firmly grasp the era of information superhighway opportunities.
Innovation cannot follow the rules
In its 30-year history, CERNET has never made a mistake in its technical route and has never taken a detour. Li Xing has also proved with practical actions that "to innovate, you must be different and have new ideas. If you follow the rules and follow the existing ideas, you will never succeed."
In the late 1990s, the use of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) was very popular in the construction of the Internet and was promoted by academia and industry. However, after research, the CERNET expert committee, including Li Xing, believed that ATM could not be the future direction and chose TCP/IP despite the pressure. Time has proved that this decision was correct.
In 2004, when CERNET2, the next generation Internet based on IPv6, was being built, the international practice at the time was to adopt a dual-stack model that supported both IPv4 and IPv6. However, Li Xing and the expert team judged that in order to achieve the essential innovation of the Internet, a new path must be taken. If we still follow the path that others have taken, we will still be following behind others and will not be able to achieve a breakthrough in core technology. Therefore, CERNET2 was built to become the world's first pure IPv6 backbone network. Now the world is advocating the transition to pure IPv6, which shows that CERNET2 was on the right track 20 years ago.
In 2007, in order to solve the routing security problem of Internet infrastructure, the CERNET team innovatively proposed the real source address authentication technology, which won the first prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award in 2023. In order to solve the technical difficulties of smooth transition from IPv4 to IPv6, the CERNET team invented the stateless translation transition technology IVI, which is an important innovation based on the negation of the IPv6 dual-stack transition solution. It was precisely because of the bold and advanced deployment at that time that our country has gone further than any other country in the world in IPv6 innovation.
Looking back at the development and construction of CERNET from 2004 to 2014, Li Xing believes that during the past decade, China has caught up in technological innovation and gradually gained and expanded its voice in the field of core Internet technologies. In 2004, the world's first and largest pure IPv6 Internet CERNET2 backbone network was built, which kicked off China's Internet technological innovation. Based on this platform, the CERNET team has actively participated in the field of global Internet technology standard formulation, and has achieved major innovative breakthroughs in the next generation Internet source address verification technology and IPv6 transition technology. It has achieved a leap from learning from and following the development of the international Internet in the initial stage to catching up with and surpassing the Internet's core technologies and applications.
In the past decade, he believes that China's Internet has entered a breakthrough and leading stage. In April 2021, CERNET's third large network, the Future Internet Experimental Facility FITI high-performance backbone network, was launched, dedicated to the exploration and practice of key core technologies of the next generation Internet, and to provide an internationally leading open experimental environment for the research and design of various innovative future Internet architectures. In November 2023, the world's first 1.2T ultra-high-speed next-generation Internet backbone channel was launched in my country, becoming a milestone in the development of global Internet infrastructure.
He also talked about the common difficulties faced by my country in the field of artificial intelligence. In terms of the application of generative artificial intelligence, China's mainstream communities still use traditional programming methods and traditional scientific research methods, while developed countries in the world have begun to use generative artificial intelligence to automatically generate programs and use generative artificial intelligence to conduct innovative research on new materials, biotechnology, pharmaceutical technology, etc. In terms of equipment, geopolitical games have led to obstacles in the import of high-tech equipment in China. "How to deal with the subversive challenges that artificial intelligence is bringing? Standing at the crossroads of historical development, our scientific and technological personnel need to make advanced and correct technical decisions." Li Xing said.
This event is funded by the China Internet Development Foundation's China Positive Energy Internet Communication Special Fund.
Beijing News Chief Reporter Bai Jinlei
Edited by Luo Yidan
Proofread by Wang Xin
