In the recent China Unicom headquarters artificial intelligence server procurement, a total of 2,503 AI servers and 688 key networking devices, RoCE switches, were purchased.

Recently, China Unicom announced the results of the 2024 AI server open procurement, with Kunlun, Baud, Hongxin, and Changjiang being the four shortlisted candidates.

Looking at the bidding situation of the four winning candidates, the average winning bid for the project is approximately 204.6 million yuan (excluding tax). Among them, Kunlun's bid was slightly higher than the average winning bid, securing the first place; Baud's bid was also above the average winning bid, earning the second place. Hongxin and Changjiang received the third and fourth places, respectively.

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According to the procurement announcement previously released by China Unicom, the total scale of this AI server procurement for the headquarters is 2,503 AI servers and 688 key networking devices, RoCE switches. The project does not divide into separate packages.

The three major operators have successively opened bids, with capital expenditures tilting towards computing power.

It is understood that last year, China Telecom also launched a centralized procurement project for AI computing power servers (2023-2024), with an estimated procurement scale of 4,175 units, divided into four packages, with a procurement scale as high as 8.4 billion.In addition, China Mobile's initiation of the 2023-2024 New Type Smart Computing Center (Trial Network) procurement, with the winning bid package 12, also pertains to the centralized procurement of artificial intelligence servers and supporting products, with a procurement scale of 1,250 units and a budget amount of over 2.4 billion.

Furthermore, Ningxia Telecom had previously issued a tender for the centralized procurement project of artificial intelligence computing basic service capabilities, with a project budget of around 700 million.

At the China Unicom 2023 performance briefing, Liang Baojun, the deputy general manager of China Unicom Group, stated that the company will actively respond to and implement the "AI+" initiative in the next step, continuously increase strategic investment, and shape artificial intelligence into a new business growth point for the company's high-quality development.

In fact, according to the previously disclosed annual reports, the three major operators have all reduced their capital expenditure amounts for 2024. However, they all plan to increase investment in AI infrastructure and other areas this year.

According to the announcement, China Mobile plans a capital expenditure of 173 billion yuan in 2024, a year-on-year decrease of 4%, with the proportion of revenue expected to drop below 20%. However, the investment in the computing power field is 47.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21.5%, raising the proportion of capital expenditure by 5.8 percentage points to 27.5%.

China Telecom plans a capital expenditure of 96 billion yuan this year, a year-on-year decrease of 2.9%. However, the company revealed that this year it will invest 18 billion yuan in cloud/computing power, with the smart computing scale exceeding 21 EFLOPS, a year-on-year increase of over 10 EFLOPS.

China Unicom also mentioned in its annual report that the fixed asset investment is expected to be about 65 billion yuan, with a moderate and slightly ahead-of-schedule approach to the investment in computing and network intelligence, accelerating the layout.

CICC believes that in the future, the expenditure growth rate of operators in the computing power field will far exceed the average growth rate of capital expenditure, and is expected to become a new growth pole in the environment where 5G investment is slowing down.

Smart computing power has become a scarce resource at present.In the past two years, AI large models have emerged one after another, and the demand for intelligent computing has been growing rapidly. Market research firm IDC predicts that by 2026, China's intelligent computing power scale will enter the ZFLOPS level, reaching 1271.4 EFLOPS.

Reports suggest that due to accelerated demand and insufficient supply, intelligent computing power has become a scarce resource at present.

According to relevant reports, artificial intelligence technology is accelerating its integration into various industries, and the demand for computing power for ultra-large-scale AI models and massive data continues to climb. IDC forecasts that China's intelligent computing power scale will continue to grow at a high speed, with an expected 1271.4 EFLOPS by 2026, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 52.3% over the next five years, compared to a CAGR of 18.5% for general computing power scale. Huawei's "Intelligent World 2030" report predicts that by 2030, humanity will enter the Yottabyte (YB) data era, with general computing power growing 10 times and AI computing power growing 500 times. A research report from Founder Securities previously pointed out that due to accelerated demand and insufficient supply, intelligent computing power has become a scarce resource at present.

Open-source securities pointed out that the AI computing power service industry chain includes cloud services, large model integrated machines, intelligent computing centers, servers, and computing chips. The key to enhancing computing power resources lies in the construction of intelligent computing centers.

The "Action Plan for High-Quality Development of Computing Power Infrastructure" released by six departments previously clarified the construction pace of top-level computing power over the next three years. It mentioned that the intelligent computing construction gap for 2023 to 2024 is 23 EFLOPS. The national computing power target for 2025 is over 300 EFLOPS, with the intelligent computing proportion reaching 35%, and the target for intelligent computing power is 105 EFLOPS.

At present, eight regions in the country are building national computing power hub nodes, and ten national data center clusters have been planned to construct a national computing power network system. By the end of 2023, there were 128 intelligent computing center projects in the country, with 83 projects disclosing their scale, totaling more than 77,000 P. In addition, in 2024, a total of 39 intelligent computing center projects have been put into production.

Deputy Minister of Industry and Information Technology Shan Zhongde stated that the next steps will focus on building a national integrated computing power system from three aspects: First, coordinate computing power resources to improve utilization efficiency and promote basic telecommunications companies to continuously improve the direct connection network from computing power clusters to major cities; Second, strengthen the leadership of intelligent computing, optimize the computing power structure, and encourage various entities to explore new models for the construction and operation of intelligent computing centers; Third, stimulate the demand for computing power and improve computing power services.