In the sheet metal workshop of Yawei, laser cutting equipment etches intricate ancient pagodas and bold blades onto hardened steel plates. At Yangjie Technology, smart inspection devices instantly capture and analyze surface details of micro-power components as tiny as sesame seeds. Meanwhile, in the Fengshang Group Smart Park, robots autonomously feed raw materials into production lines—these everyday scenes epitomize how Yangzhou’s "Grand Canal + Computing Power" model is accelerating the release of data value.
As a new economic paradigm following agricultural and industrial economies, the digital economy holds transformative potential for upgrading traditional industries and building Yangzhou into a hub of technological innovation. "Computing power is the foundation of the digital economy. Only by prioritizing breakthroughs in this core area can Yangzhou seize opportunities and soar," emphasized an official from the Municipal Data Bureau.
In recent years, Yangzhou has meticulously constructed computing power clusters, attracting multi-billion-yuan investments from Tencent Cloud, Telecom Cloud, Mobile Cloud, and Zhonglian Yungang. With the rise of its big data industrial park, the city now boasts a formidable "superbrain" cluster, achieving an operational computing capacity of 35,000 PFLOPS.
Leveraging its heritage as a canal city, Yangzhou pioneered the "Grand Canal Urban Computing Platform," China’s first cross-basin supercomputing network. This platform integrates 24 computing resource pools from nine canal cities—including Tianjin, Jinan, and Hangzhou—aggregating over 10,000 P of computing power with real-time调度 capacity of 2,000 PFLOPS. By enabling near-zero-latency resource flow, it establishes a high-speed通道 for digital economic development.
Acting as a high-performance "digital brain," this infrastructure optimizes industries, reduces costs, and enhances efficiency. At the Yangzhou (Yizheng) Big Data Industrial Park, data streams converge like rivers, processed at speeds of hundreds of billions of calculations per second. These computations—whether predicting weather, monitoring factory operations, or managing urban systems—return as actionable insights, enriching daily life and productivity.
Notably, Yangzhou’s computing power serves not only local needs but also supports industries across the Yangtze River Delta and beyond, earning designation as a national core node by ByteDance.
"Strengthening computing power aims to capture the blue ocean of the digital economy, advancing our vision of an innovation-driven city," the Data Bureau official noted. With internal computing clusters and external networks now operational, Yangzhou is transforming "invisible computing power" into "tangible productivity."
Under this dual engine, the city has established specialized zones like the Digital Economy Industrial Park and AI Industrial Park, attracting giants such as China Electronics Cloud, CETC Yihualan, iFLYTEK, and Tsinghua’s Qian Xuesen AI Team.
To spur innovation, Yangzhou became among the first in Jiangsu to roll out a "Computing Power Voucher" policy, offering annual subsidies up to 2 million yuan per enterprise. Complementary measures include "Data Vouchers" to incentivize data product development and transactions, and a digital talent program with funding up to 100 million yuan.
As Yangzhou accelerates toward its "trillion-yuan GDP city" goal, digital empowerment is critical. "Yangzhou accounts for 38.3% of Jiangsu’s computing power usage, with AI computing representing 43%, enabling comprehensive industry transformation," the official highlighted.
**Insight: Computing Power Unleashes Data Productivity** Zhu Yong, Director of the Municipal Data Bureau, remarked: "By anchoring its digital transformation in the Grand Canal’s legacy and computing infrastructure, Yangzhou has forged a unique path. Upgrading the geographic canal into a data nexus, we’ve built a cross-regional协同 platform to dismantle data silos. Our innovations—from computing backbone networks spanning four provinces to policy bundles like computing/data/AI talent vouchers—lower barriers and ignite industrial vitality. Moving forward, we’ll deepen reforms to channel data’s transformative potential into broader economic and social benefits, fueling Yangzhou’s sustained digital ascent."
