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China Activates Nationwide AI Network Linking 40 Cities at Near Single-Center Efficiency

Officials say the decade-long project entered service on December 3 to accelerate training of very large models over a deterministic optical backbone.

Overview

  • The Future Network Test Facility connects distant data centers across roughly 2,000 km so they can function almost like a single supercomputer.
  • Project leaders report about 98% of a single data center’s efficiency and per-iteration training times near 16 seconds for very large AI models.
  • State media say the infrastructure spans around 40 cities with a cumulative optical transmission length exceeding 55,000 km.
  • The platform is described as running continuously, supporting 128 heterogeneous networks, and conducting 4,096 service trials in parallel.
  • Reported applications include AI model training, telemedicine and the industrial internet, with independent validation and long-term energy and stability performance still to be demonstrated.