Historical Founding Place

Computer Network Information Center (CNIC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has a long history of providing network, computing and data services to the research community and science outreach services to the general public. As a pioneer in China's network development, CNIC has a series of historical achievements such as the birthplace of China's Internet, initiator of China's first router, and one of the earliest backbone providers of the country as the designer of China Science and Technology Network. The founding team of CNIC also contributed to the earliest data initiatives of the CAS in 1980s, initiated China's first supercomputing service in 1996, and started to use the new media and established partnerships to translate scientific information for the general public in 1999. CNIC was formally established in March, 1995.

Vint Cerf, one of fathers of the Internet, visited the first .CN domain name server @ CNIC

Two and a half decades since its foundation, CNIC has been keeping pace with the trends of designing e-infrastructures for research. CNIC operates one of China's eight backbones CSTNET, and contributes to international Internet connectivity by improving connections with foreign backbones and joining global endeavors of ITU, W3C, Asia Pacific Advanced Network, etc. CNIC also plays key roles in supporting China's HPC infrastructures and societies such as the operation center of China National Grid, founding organization of Center of Scientific Computing Applications and Research of the CAS, and China's first Intel Parallel Computing Center. Furthermore, CNIC contributes to global data collaboration network represented by the Committee on Data of International Science Council, and operates data infrastructures addressing common technical problems such as the National Basic Science Data Center and the General Center of CAS Data Center System. To support data-intensive research and industrial Internet with IoT infrastructure, CNIC has constructed China Internet of Things Name Service Platform which supports IoT identification resolution and management across disciplines and industries. Based on established infrastructures and digital information, CNIC initiated China Science and Technology Cloud which is the next-generation e-infrastructure of data and computation to accelerate scientific discoveries. To make science reach a broader audience, CNIC uses new media to support the development and dissemination of plain language with several endeavors such as Virtual Science Museums of China for public understanding of science and CAS Website System for news release. In addition, CNIC manages other CAS infrastructures to support the research community in various aspects such as academia resource planning, open access to research facilities and professional development. All of the above information systems are supported by interdisciplinary research teams, graduate students and academia-industry partnerships. To find its niche during CAS organization reform, CNIC maps out its blueprint towards advanced e-infrastructures and services addressing common informatics challenges, research and education driven by real-world problems and multi-stakeholder partnerships for technology transfer and social welfare.

Mission @ CNIC

People @ CNIC