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"Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily" August 9th (Reporter Huang Xinyi)As the province with the largest east-west span in China, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region stretches across northern China, with a length of 2,400 kilometers from east to west and a maximum span of more than 1,700 kilometers from north to south, covering a total area of ​​1.183 million square kilometers. As 5G, cloud, and AI are accelerating the development of new productivity, Inner Mongolia is promoting the digital transformation of all industries in Inner Mongolia through the integrated application of cutting-edge technologies such as computing power networks, artificial intelligence, and 5G-A.

Recently, the reporter visited the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and conducted exchanges on digital technologies such as 5G/5G-A, cloud, AI, and the construction of green computing power in the region.

▍Inner Mongolia has 76,700 5G base stations

A relevant person in charge of the Inner Mongolia Communications Administration introduced that as of the end of June this year, Inner Mongolia had 76,700 5G base stations, with 32.01 5G base stations per 10,000 people, 4.23 higher than the national average; the 5G coverage rate of administrative villages reached 96.94%, and the 5G coverage rate of industrial parks reached 100%; Hohhot, Baotou, Ordos, Chifeng, and Tongliao were successfully rated as national "Gigabit Cities".

In July this year, the Inner Mongolia Communications Administration, together with 11 relevant departments and bureaus, issued a notice on launching a special action to upgrade signal quality, launch 100M broadband, and connect northern Xinjiang, focusing on 11 key scenarios such as government service centers, cultural tourism, medical institutions, colleges and universities, and transportation hubs, and promoting signal upgrades, perception upgrades, security upgrades, and capability upgrades. By the end of 2025, more than 6,500 key places in Inner Mongolia will be covered by mobile networks; 4,000 kilometers of railways, 20,000 kilometers of roads, and two subway lines will be covered by mobile networks continuously; and the comprehensive coverage of 5G networks in administrative villages will reach 98%.There are more than 35 5G base stations per 10,000 people. Lightweight 5G technology achieves continuous coverage in the urban areas of Hohhot, Baotou and Ordos, and the average downlink access rate of the mobile network is no less than 220 Mbps, and the average uplink access rate is no less than 45 Mbps.。

2024 is the first year for 5G-A to be commercialized. 5G-A, also known as 5.5G, is a technical upgrade of 5G to 6G. Compared with 5G, 5G-A can achieve a 10-fold increase in bandwidth capacity, and has advanced features such as passive IoT, communication perception, and integrated communications between the sky and the earth, which will open up more space for 5G applications in the B-side.

The reporter learned that 5G-A has been implemented in many fields in Hohhot, including transportation, supermarkets, energy, and mining. It has built the world's first 5G-A LampSite X smart airport; completed the commercial deployment of 5G-A LampSite X in Hailiang Plaza, which is the first commercial center in the country to use 5G-A digital indoor distribution and three-carrier aggregation technology; built Yimin 5G smart mine in Hulunbuir; completed the construction of 5G private network for Huhhot-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway, realizing 5G network coverage of high-speed railway, and adopted 5G-A technology with multi-carrier aggregation in the urban section of high-speed railway; built Asia's largest open-pit coal mine-Zhunneng Coal Mine, and built the country's first 5G+ smart power plant in Dongsheng Thermal Power.

▍From "China Cloud Valley" to "World Computing Valley"

With the launch of the "East Data West Computing" project, Hohhot, as the location of the data center cluster at the hub node of Inner Mongolia, has introduced a series of policies and measures to accelerate the layout of emerging digital technology industries, and provide comprehensive guarantees in terms of project land, electricity, innovation, finance and taxation, investment and financing. It will cultivate an electronic information technology industry cluster featuring big data and cloud computing as one of the "six major industrial clusters" that Hohhot City focuses on cultivating, and comprehensively accelerate the construction of the "China Cloud Valley".

The Horqin Data Center Cluster is one of the ten national data center clusters identified in the national East-West Computing strategy. Relying on the national "East-West Computing" strategic layout and policy guarantees, the computing power industry has developed rapidly.

At present, there are more than 30 data center projects that have been implemented or are under construction in the new district. China Mobile Intelligent Computing Center, China Unicom Intelligent Computing Center, and Zhipu Huazhang Intelligent Computing Center have been completed. China Telecom Intelligent Computing Center, Guanghuan New Network Intelligent Computing Center, Huazhu Intelligent Computing Center, Parallel Technology Intelligent Computing Center, Jiuzhou Intelligent Computing, and SenseTime Technology are under construction.

Bodi, deputy director of the New District Economic Development and Investment Service Bureau, introduced that the New District's server installed capacity exceeds 1.5 million units, with a total computing power of 24,000P and intelligent computing power of 21,800P, accounting for as high as 91%;By the end of 2025, the total computing power of Horqin New District will reach 84,000P, and the intelligent computing power will reach 79,000P. The ultimate goal is to become the "strongest green computing power provider".。

"In promoting the green computing power and artificial intelligence industries, Hohhot has a clear goal and a clear path, which is to create the 'strongest green computing power supplier'." He Haidong, deputy secretary of the Hohhot Municipal Party Committee and mayor, and secretary of the Party Working Committee of the Horqin New District of Inner Mongolia, previously stated that the next step for Hohhot City is to do a good job in "storage, manufacturing, computing, transmission, research, and use" to promote Hohhot's "China Cloud Valley" to move towards the "World Computing Valley" and "World Intelligence Valley."

▍160 projects under discussion to build a green data center industry chain

In addition to computing power projects, Horqin New District has also gathered upstream, midstream and downstream of the industrial chain, including new energy peripheral supporting facilities, data center equipment manufacturing/construction/operation and maintenance, computing power output, data processing and trading. A total of 160 projects have been completed, signed or under discussion. It has introduced the Digital Industry Base of Chengmai Technology, the Advanced Computing Innovation Center of Pengfeng Technology, the Zhongbang Digital Gecko Cloud Artificial Intelligence Supercomputing Platform, the Microsoft Big Data Artificial Intelligence Incubation Platform, the Mengniu Global E-commerce Platform, and Super Fusion.

Hohhot is located between 40° and 42° north latitude, with stable geological structure, cool climate and dry air, which can effectively reduce the cooling cost of data centers, making it an ideal place to build data centers. In 2023, the total power generation in Hohhot was 72.72 billion kWh, with renewable energy accounting for more than 50%. The average annual transaction electricity price was as low as 0.32 yuan, the lowest in the country.。

During the visit, the reporter noticed that China Unicom Cloud Data Center has been established in Hohhot. As an important data center node for Unicom Group to implement the national "East Data West Computing" strategy, Hohhot Cloud Data Center is one of the four national west computing hub nodes of Unicom Group. It is planned by Unicom Group as the "1" node in the 1+N+X intelligent computing center plan, positioned as a super-large-scale intelligent computing training center, and an important green intensive computing center for computing power supply, computing power transmission, computing power scheduling, and computing network integration.

China Unicom Hohhot Cloud Data Center

In addition to carrying China Unicom's "Domestic Intelligent Computing Based on Domestic Artificial Intelligence Processors" project, China Unicom's Hohhot Cloud Data Center also provides diversified computing power services to dozens of leading customers such as party and government agencies, central state-owned enterprises in the financial industry, and large Internet companies. It supports general large-scale model training, industry large-scale model training, reasoning, cloud rendering, traditional computing, AI native storage and other businesses, and is the "model room" of China Unicom's computing power sector.