New momentum for domestic industry, demand for raw materials expected to be substantial.
China wants to massively expand its computing power, according to the newspaper China Daily. From 197 EFLOPS at present to up to 300 EFLOPS by 2025. EFLOPS, or Floating Point Operations Per Second, is a unit of measurement for the performance of computers. With this plan, Beijing wants to strengthen its technological independence, as U.S. sanctions on cutting-edge computer chips are putting pressure on the domestic industry, Bloomberg wrote on Monday (paywall). The plan now presented includes, among other things, the construction of 20 modern data centers and optical networks for data transmission.
The raw material requirements for the project are likely to be substantial. In addition to construction materials such as concrete and base metals, this also applies to critical resources: cobalt, neodymium, platinum, and ruthenium for long-term data storage hard disks, silicon for processors, gallium nitride for secure power supply, and germanium for fiber optic cables. China can cover many necessary raw materials through its own extraction or production.
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