How competitive is China’s computing strength?

China will become a front-runner in the competition of the new generation of information technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data and mobile communication, Ni Guangnan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told CGTN on Wednesday.

Ni, one of the most renowned Chinese scientists in computing technology, shared his view on the overall strength of China’s computing industry from chips to software in an exclusive interview with CGTN on the sidelines of the 2019 World Computer Congress in central China’s Changsha city, Hunan Province.

Up to now, China and the U.S. dominate when it comes to the world’s fastest supercomputers, owning 45.4 percent and 21.8 percent of the top systems globally respectively, and the expert said that the status quo will continue. But the chip industry is obviously a weak link of China, Ni said, adding that China’s gap in the area with that of developed countries is relatively big.

“Although we are not bad in chip design, we still depend on foreign countries in chip manufacturing, equipment, material and even chip designing tools,” he said.

According to him, China's backwardness in the IC (integrated circuit) industry is not something that can be improved quickly in a short term.“If we work hard, it should take more than a decade," he noted. But he held that China’s gap in software might be narrowed faster, which might just take a few years, as long as the talents in the sector are well cultivated.

As for the development of the software industry, it’s mainly about whether China can build a complete ecosystem (including operating systems and all kinds of applications) like that of Windows, according to him.

“It’s not entirely about technological issues. An important thing is the popularization of the operating systems and applications. If China could promote that, the gap in this respect might be bridged very fast,” he said.

(CGTN)