Breaking the 20-year Western technology blockade! He made it easier for Chinese people to make phone calls

Today, communications and the Internet have become an indispensable part of our lives. However, in China 30 or 40 years ago, telephones were still a luxury for ordinary families. Who pushed for this change in our country? Let's learn about the scientific research path of Academician Wu Jiangxing, the "Father of China's Large-Capacity Program-Controlled Switches".

He was one of the first

People who work with computers

Wu Jiangxing was born into a military family. His father and grandfather were both Red Army soldiers. Under the influence of his father, Wu Jiangxing joined the army in 1969 and later served as a data entry clerk, becoming one of the first people in China to deal with computers.

In order to enter a broader field, Wu Jiangxing began to learn relevant knowledge by himself. During this period, he suffered setbacks and even gave up. For this reason, his father wrote him a letter for the first and only time: "If you have decided to do something, you must stick to it. To serve the people, you must also have the ability to serve the people."
Wu Jiangxing was determined at that time to make a career in the field of computer science and engineering in China.

After that, Wu Jiangxing, not satisfied with self-study, applied for further studies and completed his undergraduate studies in computer engineering in 1982. Due to his excellent academic performance, he presided over the development of the large-scale distributed high-performance computer system DP300 while still in school, which was the fastest and largest computer project in China at that time.

In 1983, China's communications industry ushered in a major event: China introduced its first program-controlled exchange. Prior to this, my country's telephone installations were very low, telephone lines were old, and even antique lines from the Republic of China period were in service beyond their lifespan.

Wu Jiangxing: It was difficult to install a telephone and it was also difficult to make a call. It was not easy to make a call in the morning. (The call was connected) The sound was so quiet that it was quieter than the buzz of a mosquito.

At that time, the foreign exchange flowing out of my country in the form of service fees alone amounted to tens of billions of US dollars each year. Not only did the West block the technology of programmable switching systems, it also publicly declared that "even by the end of the 20th century, the Chinese would not be able to develop large-scale digital programmable switching systems."

The development of my country's own program-controlled telephone exchange was imminent, and this burden fell on the 32-year-old Wu Jiangxing. Crossing over from the familiar computer field to the unfamiliar communication field, Wu Jiangxing did not know what a program-controlled exchange was at the time, and he was not even very clear about the principles of telephone exchanges.
Wu Jiangxing had to find another way. During a seven-day and seven-night closed-door research with his team, a bold idea came up: to design a telephone switch using computer concepts.

In 1991, China's original 10,000-line digital programmable switching system, the HJD04, was launched . It can support access to 10,000 wired landlines and can be further expanded, setting a world record and breaking the 20-year technological blockade by Western countries.

Since then, the initial installation fee of telephone in China has dropped from 5,000 yuan to less than 200-300 yuan, and the "04 machine" has also gained another name - "China's pride machine". In 1995, the "04 machine" won the first national science and technology progress first prize in the field of telecommunications since the founding of New China.

He let the Chinese create a technological model

Becoming the world standard

In the 1990s, the Internet abroad entered a fast lane of development. How to create a high-speed information demonstration network with China's own technology and realize the integration of telecommunications network, radio and television network and Internet became an innovative problem at that time.

This time, Wu Jiangxing still chose not to follow the traditional mainstream research ideas and changed lanes to overtake. The "three-network integration" technology based on the telecommunications network that he and his team pioneered realized the use of the Internet to carry high-definition television live broadcasts of sports events for the first time in the world.

During the 2006 World Cup in Germany, tens of thousands of students in the Yangtze River Delta region watched the live broadcast of the games via the Internet, thanks to the technology developed by Wu Jiangxing's team.

At this point, a new era of popularization of interactive Internet television, or IPTV, has arrived. This technical model created by the Chinese has now become a world standard.

Wu Jiangxing frankly said that he was not willing to follow others in doing things, because under the premise of others' standards, only by challenging this premise can one have the possibility of surpassing others.

“True innovation

It was never passed with applause."

Now, with the advent of the era of artificial intelligence, Wu Jiangxing has focused his work on tackling bottleneck problems in related fields and cultivating talents.

“Human society needs inventions and creations from 0 to 1, that is, we must have the courage to venture into uncharted territory and do things that are created out of nothing and have never been done before…”

Wu Jiangxing encouraged students to dare to break the rules and do things that their predecessors have not done, which is also a reflection of his own lifelong struggle.

In Wu Jiangxing's class, the more heated the discussions among the young people, the happier he is: "We old scientists want to awaken more young people and give them the courageous spirit of exploration!"

Planning and production

Source: CCTV News

Editor: Yang Yaping

Proofread by Xu Lailinlin