【Financial Explanation】How does the "Computing Power Bank" collect interest? How does the "Computing Power Supermarket" charge fees?

Ask AI · How does the revenue mechanism of the computing power bank differ from traditional finance?

China News Service, April 7 — (Xie Jingwen) Computing power now also has a “supermarket” and a “bank.”

Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice to carry out a special action to empower small and medium-sized enterprises with inclusive computing power. It mentioned exploring innovative businesses such as “computing power banks” and “computing power supermarkets,” supporting SMEs to deposit idle computing resources and enabling flexible use through cross-region and cross-cycle scheduling.

The “bank” and “supermarket” are well known to the public, but how should the invisible and intangible “computing power” be stored and loaned? Will it accrue interest?

According to CCTV News, Li Jie, Deputy Director of Cloud Computing and Digitalization at China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, explained that a “computing power bank” can be understood as a savings account for computing power, where idle computing resources are stored. The platform will intelligently schedule and stagger allocation, allowing computing power to be stored and traded.

“The so-called storage of computing power means encapsulating and integrating data center and enterprise idle computing resources through unified technical standards, registering them on the computing power bank platform, and forming a schedulable computing power reserve. Lending computing power means that SMEs, based on actual needs for R&D, operations, etc., apply for corresponding specifications of computing power on the platform, which, after approval, can be directly invoked online and used until finished,” said Zhu Keli, founder of the New Economy Research Institute, to China News Service. The logic of “deposit and loan” of computing power borrows from traditional banking but is tailored to the attributes of computing power.

Zhu Keli believes that the computing power bank does not have the concept of interest like traditional banks, but has a corresponding value return mechanism. Suppliers deposit idle computing power, and the platform will provide appropriate returns or computing subsidies based on the duration and performance of the computing power, which is equivalent to “interest” on computing power. Demanders use the computing power and need to pay fees based on actual usage. Part of this fee is used to pay the supplier’s returns, and part covers platform operation costs. The overall mechanism ensures that suppliers can monetize their computing power while demanders can access low-cost computing resources, balancing the value for both sides.

So, what is a computing power supermarket? How is it different from current computing power platforms?

According to Li Jie, the “computing power supermarket” is similar to an e-commerce platform’s trading market for computing power, gathering various computing power products and supporting online transactions. Users can log into the platform, select different computing power products, pay, and use the resources as easily as buying daily necessities.

Zhu Keli explained that the computing power supermarket aggregates resources from multiple service providers, acting as a comprehensive marketplace for computing power services. In terms of experience, enterprises can freely compare the performance and prices of different providers, choose according to their needs, and activate services instantly. It supports short-term rentals and elastic allocation without mandatory contracts.

Zhu Keli believes that the pricing mechanism of the computing power supermarket will refer to differentiated electricity pricing for households, implementing categorized and tiered pricing. For example, pricing units are divided based on performance and use, with different standards for high-performance AI computing power and general-purpose computing power, and peak-valley price differences are set, with differentiated costs during peak and off-peak hours.

“SMEs can completely select and combine computing power services as they do with daily consumption packages. The platform will offer basic and customized packages covering computing, storage, and operations, allowing enterprises to flexibly choose the size of computing resources and usage periods based on their business scale and usage time, supporting pay-as-you-go, per-use, and monthly billing methods,” Zhu Keli envisions.

Zhu Keli stated that the computing power supermarket is a new model of inclusive computing power services promoted at the national level. Compared to traditional cloud platforms, its core advantages are openness, inclusiveness, and intensive integration, capable of breaking the service barriers of single vendors.

In Zhu Keli’s view, equating computing power with capital and launching computing power banks and supermarkets is fundamentally borrowing resource allocation thinking from financial services to solve the supply and demand contradictions in the computing power field. The computing power bank consolidates scattered and idle resources, breaking regional and entity barriers, forming a large-scale computing power pool; simultaneously, it precisely matches the fragmented and lightweight needs of SMEs, enabling on-demand and staggered allocation of computing power.

(For more reports and tips, please contact the author Xie Jingwen: xiejingwen@chinanews.com.cn)(China News Service APP)

(The viewpoints in this article are for reference only and do not constitute investment advice. Investment involves risks; please proceed with caution.)

Editor: Chang Tao, Li Zhongyuan