Huge donation to create advanced computing center at SJTU

Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) will soon have a first-class high performance computing center (HPC) with the most advanced technologies of any Chinese university, donated by alumnus Yang Yuanqing, chairman of Lenovo, China’s top computer maker.

HPC has become an essential infrastructure for advanced research in basic science, especially in the fields of climate change, advanced energy, astrophysics, life science, materials science and other disciplines that require intensive computing and massive data processing. With the support of high performance computing power, researchers can better utilize their ingenuity and achieve more innovative breakthroughs.

Yang announced a personal donation of 100 million yuan (US$15.4 million) to SJTU to mark its 125th anniversary. 

The donation will be used to build a green liquid-cooling, high-performance computing center, which will improve the university’s computing capabilities, facilitate basic research and innovation, support the cultivation of talent and help tackle common challenges faced by humanity.

“As we enter the fourth industrial revolution, or the intelligent transformation era, computing power, especially HPC, has become, on the one hand, an important driving force along with big data and algorithms, and on the other, a considerable bottleneck for technology breakthroughs and application innovation," said Yang, who graduated from the university’s department of computer science in 1986. "Particularly in universities and research institutes, advanced HPC is essential for basic scientific research and the cultivation of talent."

The HPC center will be built and delivered by Lenovo, adopting the company's most advanced HPC products and technologies with Intel chips. The center will utilize Lenovo’s own liquid-cooling technology, reducing energy costs by 40 percent compared to traditional air-cooling systems -- contributing to China’s carbon-neutrality goals.

At the ceremony, Yang was also appointed to SJTU's board of directors.