QINGDAO -- Artificial intelligence has been developing rapidly in China, and the eastern coastal city Qingdao has jumped on the bandwagon, eying to become an advanced computing hub with influence radiating across east China.

In February, Shandong's first AI computing cluster was put into operation at the Qingdao Artificial Intelligence Computing Center.
The domestically developed AI computing cluster can perform 100 petaflops -- the capacity to conduct 100 trillion operations per second -- which equals to the computing power of 50,000 computers.
The center is aiming to expand the computing power performance to 300 petaflops, which can serve all the clients in the province.
AI uses algorithms and data to simulate human intelligence and decision making. And the computing power of AI provides a foundational basis for the application of AI technology, which could be compared with the foundation of a digital highway.
In Qingdao, AI has been applied in marine environmental forecast.
Scholars at the Ocean University of China in the coastal city have been training an AI model to forecast Arctic sea ice and marine environment. The model, equipped with strong computing power, can increase the forecast accuracy by 10 percent and reduce the time delay by 20 percent.
The Qingdao Artificial Intelligence Computing Center has served 234 enterprises and scientific research institutes, with the utilization rate of computing power reaching 80 percent.
To cope with the growing demand for services, in February, Qingdao opened the Qingdao Artificial Intelligence Industrial Park with a planned computing power scale of 600 petaflops.