Core Insights - The event "Storage Power China Tour" in Beijing focused on the challenges and innovative paths of storage power in the AI inference era, highlighting the importance of advanced storage as a core support for AI technology implementation [1] - The AI industry has transitioned from model creation to practical application, with inference costs becoming a bottleneck for large-scale deployment, driven by the exponential growth of token usage in various sectors [3] - Technical innovation is essential for overcoming industry pain points, with storage architecture evolving from passive storage to intelligent collaboration, exemplified by Huawei's Unified Cache Management (UCM) technology [4] Industry Challenges - The AI industry's shift to practical applications has led to three main challenges: the explosion of multimodal data creating storage capacity pressures, the high performance demands on storage systems, and the high costs of advanced storage media [3] - Traditional storage architectures struggle to meet the requirements for high throughput, low latency, and heterogeneous data integration, hindering AI application development [3] Technological Innovations - The UCM technology developed by Huawei represents a significant advancement, enabling a three-tier cache architecture that dramatically reduces token latency by up to 90% and increases system throughput by 22 times [4] - UCM's open-source initiative aims to lower barriers for small and medium enterprises to access advanced inference acceleration capabilities and promote unified technical standards [4] Ecosystem Development - A collaborative effort involving Huawei, China Mobile, and Inspur has led to the establishment of the "Advanced Storage AI Inference Working Group," focusing on technology research, standard formulation, and ecosystem building [5] - The Chinese storage industry has a solid foundation, with total storage capacity reaching 1680 EB by June 2025, and advanced storage accounting for 28% of this capacity, nearing the targets set in national development plans [5][6] Future Outlook - Advanced storage is evolving into a central component of the AI intelligent computing system, addressing performance, cost, and efficiency bottlenecks, thus making AI technology more accessible to small and medium enterprises [7] - The ongoing technological advancements and ecosystem improvements are expected to transform AI from a luxury for large enterprises into a necessity for smaller businesses, enhancing its practical value in real-world applications [7]