Introduction

Currently, the deep integration of artificial intelligence and integrated circuits has made innovations in computing power chip architecture a key area in global technological competition. On May 17, the first AI Academician Forum themed “Leading Chip Power, Creating the Future” was held in Beijing, marking the establishment of the Beijing Key Laboratory of New Architecture Intelligent Chip Technology. Experts from government, industry, academia, and research gathered to discuss the core technology breakthroughs in China’s intelligent chip sector, aiming to foster consensus on independent innovation in computing power.

The forum was guided by the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission and the Zhongguancun Science Park Management Committee, hosted by the Beijing Key Laboratory of New Architecture Intelligent Chip Technology, and co-organized by Qingwei Intelligence, the Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing University of Technology, and Beijing Zhiyuan Artificial Intelligence Research Institute. Government officials, academicians, and industry leaders engaged in in-depth discussions on topics such as the transformation of computing infrastructure architecture, breakthroughs in core technologies, and the construction of industrial ecosystems, aiming to contribute to the national 14th Five-Year Plan and promote self-reliance in the computing power sector.

Computing power is the core productivity of the digital age, and a controllable AI computing power foundation is a crucial support for technological self-reliance. During the opening ceremony, Liu Xiaofeng, Vice Chairman of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, delivered a speech proposing four suggestions for high-quality industrial development: focus on forming a collaborative task force to address key shortcomings in algorithms and high-end chips; promote AI empowerment in the real economy while ensuring technology benefits the public; strengthen open collaboration to enhance the virtuous cycle of technology, industry, and finance; and improve the AI governance system to ensure the safe and controllable development of technology, clarifying the direction for healthy industrial development.

Zhang Jihong, Director of the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission, stated that Beijing gathers the nation’s leading AI innovation resources, with 148 top global AI talents, and a core industry scale exceeding 450 billion yuan, ranking first in the country. The establishment of the Beijing Key Laboratory of New Architecture Intelligent Chip Technology is a significant step for Beijing to solidify its independent computing power foundation and strengthen core technology breakthroughs, leveraging the collaborative innovation advantages of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region to drive regional industrial upgrades.

Wang Bo, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Qingwei Intelligence, noted that China’s AI core industry scale has surpassed 1.2 trillion yuan and is expected to exceed 10 trillion yuan by 2030. The forum aims to analyze industry trends, exchange cutting-edge results, and collaboratively bridge the “last mile” from technological innovation to industrial innovation.

During the event, the unveiling ceremony of the Beijing Key Laboratory of New Architecture Intelligent Chip Technology was held. Zhang Jihong and the laboratory director Ouyang Peng jointly unveiled the laboratory, with guests including Liu Xiaofeng, Chinese Academy of Sciences Academician Qian Depai, and Chinese Academy of Engineering Academician Li Keqiang witnessing the event. Seven experts, including Qian Depai, Wu Nanjian, and Wu Yanjun, were appointed as members of the laboratory’s academic committee. The establishment of this laboratory marks a critical step in China’s structured exploration of new architectures for intelligent chips and the reconstruction of computing paradigms.

Keynote Reports

In the keynote report session, academicians, experts, and researchers focused on innovations in underlying architectures, sharing cutting-edge technological achievements and exploring development paths for intelligent chips. Qian Depai, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a computer expert, presented a report titled “Promoting Computing Power Development through Two Integrations,” proposing a dual-driven strategy of “computing-network integration” and “intelligent-computing integration.” He pointed out that the growth rate of supercomputers has slowed, necessitating new pathways for developing combined systems through breakthroughs in wafer-level integration and 3D stacking. He vividly suggested constructing a “computing Taobao” model, allowing users to obtain application solutions instead of just computing time, stating, “Let application results be the measure of success, making computing power a public infrastructure like water and electricity.”

Li Keqiang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and an expert in automotive intelligence, focused on the transformative field of intelligent vehicles in his report titled “Key Technologies and Applications of the Computing Infrastructure Platform for Intelligent Vehicles.” He systematically elaborated on the core architecture of the “computing infrastructure platform,” which integrates chips, operating systems, and functional software to form a public technology foundation, creatively proposing a new industrial form of “1.5-level suppliers.” This platform decouples applications from hardware, aiming to break the homogenization of technology and build a controllable industrial ecosystem through integrated vehicle-road-cloud systems, strengthening the safety foundation of intelligent vehicles.

The wave of artificial intelligence is not only reshaping industries but also profoundly rewriting the way knowledge is produced. Zhu Xinkai, Executive Vice President and Professor at Renmin University of China, presented a report titled “Exploring Research Organizational Forms of Philosophy and Social Sciences in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” using smart agricultural history research as a “test field” to showcase a new path for philosophy and social sciences to embrace AI. He proposed the creation of the position of “Philosophy and Social Sciences AI Architect” to establish a strong team deeply coupled with AI, emphasizing that philosophy and social sciences should not be passive observers but should actively become trainers of AI and builders of theories for “intelligent benevolence.” This cross-disciplinary exploration provides a new paradigm for empowering technological innovation in the humanities and social sciences.

New Architecture Intelligent Chip Industry Forum

In the afternoon, the New Architecture Intelligent Chip Industry Forum focused on key directions such as brain-like chips, open instruction sets, software ecosystems, and semiconductor manufacturing, discussing pathways for the industrialization of technology. In terms of perception, Wu Nanjian, a researcher at the Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, shared breakthroughs in the “All-Pulse Vision System,” which integrates photon pulse image sensors with pulse neural networks into a single chip, achieving brain-like visual chips with significantly superior processing speed and power consumption compared to international counterparts.

In the processor ecosystem, Bao Yungang, Deputy Director and Professor at the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, pointed out that the demand for inference computing power in the AI era will reach hundreds of billions, and RISC-V, with its flexible customization advantages, is becoming an ideal choice for the AI chip foundation. Its leading “Xiangshan” open-source high-performance processor has achieved the shipment of tens of thousands of chips and clusters.

Men Chunlei, head of the AI system R&D team at Beijing Zhiyuan Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, introduced the “Zhongzhi Flag OS” 2.0 open computing ecosystem. This platform is downward compatible with various chip architectures and supports large models and embodied intelligent applications, aiming to achieve deep decoupling of models and heterogeneous hardware.

At the application level, Chen Zhijie, Deputy Director of the laboratory and Professor at Beijing University of Technology, showcased an intelligent visual chip for infrared detectors, achieving adaptive precision and bandwidth tuning through a reconfigurable noise-shaping ADC, with a measured power consumption of only 190 milliwatts, providing a mature solution for low-power edge-side infrared intelligent applications.

During the forum, Frost & Sullivan released the “New Type of Computing Power Chip and Future Key Technology Development Report 2026.” The report predicts that by 2030, China’s AI computing power chip market will exceed 1.6 trillion yuan, with an average annual compound growth rate of 50%. It also points out that domestic computing power chips still have shortcomings in computing efficiency, versatility, and scalability, while reconfigurable data flow architectures show development potential, with the next five to ten years being a critical window for industrial commercialization.

In the roundtable dialogue and the first meeting of the laboratory’s academic committee, experts exchanged ideas on new architecture chip innovation and full-link ecosystem construction, clarifying the laboratory’s key research directions and proposing a shift from single chip development to overall breakthroughs in architectural systems, enhancing the agile design verification capabilities of AI-enabled chips and accelerating the transformation of core technological achievements.