What Information Technology is Really Needed for developing countries? Guojie Li

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1 What Information Technology is Really Needed for developing countries? Guojie Li

2 What Problems Should be Solved Firstly by Applying IT? May Be a Better Question by Applying IT? May Be a In developing country like China, the most important problem needed to be solved is reducing energy consumption and environment pollution which is now the most frequently appeared word in the Chinese newspapers and TV. What IT can do for this big thing? So far Chinese IT people has no unusual idea. Other important issues for developing countries include improving the capacity of people, heighten productivity by using computers and reducing the digital divide. The common requirement for solving all above problems is mass adoption of IT.

3 Value-Added and Profit/Revenue Ratio of China s High-Tech are quite low unit: 100 million yuan (1$=7.55yuan) Years Value added ratio only 24% Profit ratio only 4.2% 1423

4 China s IT market is still very shallow. Supply-side lags behind consumption Cost (TCO, Idea-2-Value) is still high China IT Breadth and Depth China IT Breadth and Depth Source: IDC2004 Unit: $Billion Country PC Server Storage PC : Server : Storage China : 0.16 : 0.06 Korea : 0.60 : 0.50 Japan : 0.80 : 0.90 North America : 0.29 : 0.30 World : 0.26 : 0.26

5 Digital Divide in China (2005) Regions of China Netizens Distribution Per Capita Netizens Per Capita Domain Names Eastern 57.8% 13.0% 0.4% Middleland 22.1% 5.7% 0.07% Western 20.1% 6.0% 0.07% Nationwide 100% 8.5% 0.2% Population Distribution Netizens Distribution Per Capita Netizens Urban 42% 82.6% 16.9% Rural 58% 17.4% 2.6% Distribution of Internet Users and Domain Names in China (2005)

6 Product and Service Demands for Developing countries What is real technology advance we wanted? In developing countries, what the most people needed is the appropriate technology rather than the most advanced technology. Appropriate technology means affordable price, easy to use and maintain, energy-efficient, good enough performance. Appropriate technology is real high-tech! How to evaluate the significance of R&D for new products and services? Number of persons that will be affected Duration that will influence Difference it will make

7 The research directions of our Institute The major research directions of Institute of Computing Technology (ICT), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in the early 21 century LUSIA Low Cost Usability Security Intelligent Availability

8 Rational Thinking---the Third Factor of Deciding What to Do Besides the progress of technology and market demands rational thinking about long future is the third factor to determine the pivot products and services in the next decade. The market is not always correct. Purely profit oriented development may endanger the future of human being. For the past 50 years, the information technology has advanced very rapidly. However, we need for introspection in order to not fall into the same trap of first pollute, then clean up. It would be terrible if our posterity were to criticize us in 2050, like we now criticize the pollution of traditional industry.

9 Balanced Advance of IT Frequently, we are asked by question What technology will advance more quickly? or What information technology will radically change the world in the next decade, multi-core chip design, next generation wireless communication or huge storage? In fact, various technologies are mutually conditioned, single technology cannot advance independently. Balanced IT is required. In China, 60% R&D expenditure in high tech has been focused in electronic and communication area However, China is not strong in communication technology today, because we need integrate computer and other technologies to design new network equipments and construct advanced wireless network. Chinese researchers have not paid enough attention to the R&D of network science and technology. The network technology is not only communication-related, it is more computer-oriented.

10 High-technology industry expenditure on R&D and as a percentage of value added (2005) ABOUT $5B ABOUT $3B High-tech Industry Aeronautics / Astronautics Computer industry Electronic and communication Medical equipment Pharmacy

11 Huge Volume Asks for Mass Production Year GDP $Trillion Com puter Market $Bilion Internet Users Milion) Client Devices (Milion) Sources: China NBS, CCID, CNNIC, Goldman Sachs

12 State of Information Science and Technology at 2007 IT at 2007 is like automobile and electricity industry in the 1920 s Net-centric servers at 2007 are similar to Centralized servers at 1960 s Implications: We are not yet ready for mass adoption We have not solved some of the fundamental problems in Information science. As compared with Physics, today s information science may be similar to Galileo s era. There is still ample opportunity for innovation

13 IT : Not ready for mass production/creation In mass production there is no fitting (Henry Ford, 1926) Interchangeable parts (independently designed), Open standards The Robustness Principle: be tolerant of inputs, and strict on outputs We do not yet have a standard information socket Difficult to create utility devices (information devices) Virtualization in Eliminate fitting (tight coupling) Enable combinatorial innovation

14 Changing Drivers of China Growth Low cost IP Drives Growth

15 Mass Education is a Big Issue Young Chinese people only get education less than 8 years in average, which is equivalent to that the American people did 100 years ago. How IT can help to educate more than 20% of world population? Up to now, the major applications of Internet in China is entertainment, which may not be right direction for us.

16 Comparison between China and US w.r.t the applications of Internet Netizens RATIO Entertainment ) Digital life 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% 68.5% 34% China 61.1% US N/A 47.0% 35% Network music Network video Network game 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% 15.2% 46% Find job China 24.0% N/A 25.5% 71% 4.3% US 15% 3.9% 63% shopping travel education sales 20.9% 43% bank 14.1% 13% Stocks

17 Highlights of the China s e-nation Strategy ( ) China s e-nation Informatization) Strategy Information resources are as important as energy and material resources IT is not just used for economy development. IT should be used for the advance and betterment of all aspects of the nation economy, political system, culture, society, and spirit In 2020, the advanced information infrastructure will be established in China.

18 Low Cost Products and Services are Really Needed in the Next Decade Up to 2007, the penetration rate of Internet in China is only 12%. It is expected that at least 400 millions of Chinese people will connected to Internet in the next decade. If adopting the current PC and servers, more than 10T US dollars will be needed for informatization in China, which is unaffordable for Chinese people. What is really needed is not only high performance but also reducing the cost of computers and other information products so that information services will be available for low- income people.

19 Multiple choices of new products Performance 1000 Moore s Law High end products 100 A APerfm 1000X Cost 1X C B Perfm 100X PCost 0.1X C Possible Technology Boundary in next Years 10 C CPerfm 10X PCost 0.01X) D(pefm 1X,Cost 0.001X) /Cost Low-end embedded products

20 Loongson strategy: Low cost, Low power consumption performance Advanced technology Intel MODEL Loongson 2F: LGodson 2F G Power P2W 2Gflops/w consumer Loongson model Loongson 3: 16 core <30w electronics 1- $15-25 $ Loongson 2E Cost power

21 Thank you