China launches self-developed high-end server

BEIJING - The first high-end server independently developed by a Chinese company was officially put on the market Tuesday, a step that it is thought will help break the dominance of foreign companies.

The Tiansuo K1 System, a fault-tolerant server developed by the Shangdong-based Inspur Group Co., made its debut in Beijing after four years of research and development costing 750 million yuan (about 120 million U.S. dollars).

The server's debut ends a situation in which core equipment for China's information network has been controlled by foreign companies, Yang Xianwu, deputy director of the high and new technology department under the Ministry of Science and Technology, said at the launching ceremony.

China has been dependent on imports for high-end servers for a long time, and the technology and market are monopolized by international giants including IBM and HP.

High-end servers have much higher processing capacity than regular ones and are core equipment for financial, telecommunication, energy and other important industries.

Yang said a weak domestic industry and the country's reliance on foreign products not only raised the costs for China's drive toward informationization, but also brought about data security risks.

Xu Wen, an official with China's Banking Regulatory Commission, said the banking industry has strong demand for high-end servers, but prices of imported products are usually much higher than those on foreign markets.

A survey showed that the average price for such servers in China are 2.4 times those found in the United States.

Some 15.2 billion yuan were spent on high-end servers in China in 2012, according to Sun Pishu, chairman of Inspur Group.

"It is going to be a new challenge for the company to win a share in a market totally dominated by foreign companies," Sun added.