How to efficiently, safely, and reliably utilize data resources on the internet to extract more value from data fusion and collision is a pressing challenge in the academic world.
Recently, a promising technical solution to this challenge has emerged. On November 9th, the "Collection: Internet of Data Based on Digital Object Architecture and Big Data Interoperability Technology" developed under the leadership of Professor Gang Huang's team at the School of Computer Science, Peking University, was selected as a leading technological achievement at the 2022 World Internet Conference.
In the complex, open, dynamic, and challenging-to-control environment of the internet, this technology has achieved trustworthy, manageable, and controllable data interconnection, interoperability, and interaction. It embodies a significant technological transformation and a brand new application ecosystem for a data-centric Internet of Data, taking a substantial step towards the development of the data space in the realm of cyberspace.
Welcome to the universe of Internet of Data
where do digital objects come from?
Have you heard of the Internet of Data? It's a virtual network on the Internet with the goal of liberating data from machines and applications to create independent digital objects. This addresses the issues of unreliable, unmanageable, and uncontrollable data usage. Data on the Internet of Data has addresses independent of Internet IP addresses and the Domain Name System (DNS). The address of the same data remains unchanged no matter which machine it runs on.
When data becomes an entity independent of machines on the Internet, it provides a new technological approach to critical challenges in the digital economy, such as data asset management, circulation, transactions, and privacy protection.
Interconnection of All Things is the grand vision outlined by the Internet of Data. Its primary challenge is the liberation of massive data resources on the Internet. However, over the past three decades, the development of information technology in a networked manner has led to the creation of millions of isolated information systems, known as information islands. These systems lack functional connections, do not share or exchange information, and are often disconnected from information and business processes. Each information island holds a vast amount of valuable data. Only by breaking down these information islands can efficient interoperability of business data and functions with third-party systems be achieved. This is a significant requirement for the development of big data and is recognized as a global-level challenge.
Academician Hong Mei and Professor Gang Huang from Peking University, leading a team, have spent over a decade on fundamental research and key technological advancements. They developed the "Resource Reflection Mechanism and Efficient Interoperability Technology of Cloud-Edge Fusion Systems." This innovation involves external monitoring and control of the system's client-side to achieve efficient interoperability of system business data and functions. It eliminates dependencies on system source code, database tables, backend permissions, and the original development team, as opposed to traditional methods. This approach increases the data openness efficiency of information islands by an average of two orders of magnitude. In recognition of this achievement, they were awarded the First Prize of the National Technology Invention Award in 2018, marking the first time such an award was given in the field of computer science in China. Efficiently breaking down these information islands has also provided an ample supply of digital objects for the construction of the Internet of Data.
Vast Data at Hand.
Big Data Interoperability Technology.
Interoperability refers to the ability of independent information systems to communicate and utilize each other's functions. After breaking down information silos, new challenges in both technical and ethical aspects emerged for interoperability.
On a technical level, the vast amount of data significantly increased the complexity of processing. During their research, Professor Huang's team encountered several difficulties, with cross-domain use of large-scale data leaving a lasting impression. Through continuous research, the team chose "structural innovation as the breakthrough point, revealing the semantic mechanism of data scheduling and data application that can be separated, achieving the capability of cross-domain, with tens of thousands of nodes, scheduling millions of data requests per second," ultimately overcoming this technological bottleneck.
On the ethical level, the challenges are more critical. Data must be used to generate value, but individual users must remain cautious about the extent to which their personal information is disclosed. When identity information becomes a piece of data, the removal of personal information to prevent its unrestricted use by strangers while respecting the data owner's preferences is crucial. Making all data trustworthy, manageable, and controllable is of paramount importance for the widespread use of the Internet of Data. This, in turn, drives continuous upgrades of existing interoperability technologies.
Based on this, Professor Huang's team tackled a series of key technologies related to data traceability and control over data usage. They successfully addressed issues like code analysis, smart contracts, and distributed ledgers, enabling "pre-audit, in-process control, and post-accountability" during data usage. They also overcame performance bottlenecks in cross-domain usage and trusted control of billions of digital objects across tens of thousands of nodes in the Internet environment. This accomplishment led to the creation of a comprehensive suite of basic software for the Internet of Data, covering essential functions such as digital object access, identification, discovery, exchange, usage, and control. Ultimately, this effort established a China-based Internet of Data solution with the core of the digital object architecture (DOA), representing international advancement and global applicability.
Technology-driven + Application-led
Transition from collaborative innovation to integrated innovation among industry, academia, and research.
Information cannot exist in isolation, and the same goes for technology. Leveraging technological advancements to continually drive the application and adoption of technology in critical national and industry sectors has been the consistent path followed by Professor Huang's team.
China Electronics Corporation (CEC), in cooperation with Peking University since 2019, comprehensively introduced Peking University's research achievements. Based on this collaboration, they have developed key products and solutions, such as the China Electronics Cloud Data Interconnection Platform, support platforms in the field of innovation, and integrated devices for data interconnection. In February 2020, in further collaboration with Peking University, they jointly established the National New-Type Physical Research Institute, the Beijing Advanced Institute of Big Data (AIBD), to advance the construction and large-scale applications of data interconnection infrastructure.
At present, Professor Huang's team has collaborated with over a hundred universities, research institutions, and leading enterprises worldwide to create the DOA based Internet of Data China Solution. This has supported and facilitated demonstration applications in several key areas such as wide-area data interconnection in Shanxi Province, energy data interconnection in the State Grid Corporation of China, the registration and verification of data elements in the Industrial Internet of Things, modern drug regulation, national scientific data discovery, and sharing. The team has also developed a collaborative innovation model that spans the 'production, education, research, and application' chain, and their software technology research contributions are aligned with national strategic goals, offering the 'Peking University Solution.
Technology-driven + Application-led
'Peking University Solution' has evolved to emit the 'Chinese voice'.
In the process of conducting research on the DOA, Huang's team collaborated with one particularly noteworthy partner, Robert E. Kahn. Kahn is a co-inventor of the internet protocol TCP/IP and was awarded the ACM Turing Award in 2004. He is celebrated as one of the "fathers of the internet" and was among the earliest proponents and advocates of the concept of digital objects.Starting in 2018, the collaboration between Huang's team and Kahn deepened. In 2019, Kahn was appointed as an honorary professor at Peking University.
Their partnership is rooted not only in shared academic vision but also in the effort to position the "Chinese Solution" prominently on the global stage. In 2020, the DOA Application Technology & Standardization Development Organization (ATSD) Global Secretariat was established at Peking University. During the same year, Huang's team took the lead in establishing the DOIP (Digital Object Interface Protocol) Standard Development and Application Working Group. They developed a new version of the DOIP international standard, one of the two core protocols of the DOA, and achieved open-source software implementation of the DOIP protocol stack. This development signified that Huang Gang's team had begun to grasp international discourse authority over a technologically influential system in the field of digital objects. It allowed the "Peking University Solution" to represent the "Chinese Solution" and to project the Chinese voice on the world stage.
A photo of Professor Huang Gang and Kahn
The development of the digital economy and digital society will establish a data space that supports the development and utilization of various types of data in the socio-economic context. Similar to cyberspace, which is composed of the Internet and other communication networks, as well as their higher-level applications, data space is constructed by data networks like the DOA and their associated applications. Since the DOA fundamentally operates as a virtual data network built on top of existing communication networks such as the Internet, data space essentially represents a new form of cyberspace, shifting the focus from "computation-centric" to "data-centric." This transition presents significant transformative technological challenges and opportunities for innovation.
Building upon their existing research, Huang Gang's team will concentrate on addressing critical obstacles that hinder the development of data space and the DOA, including technological development bottlenecks, weak foundational application theories, and the absence of core system software. Their research will encompass the development of the data space technology system, standard specifications, core systems, test environments, application demonstrations, and open-source ecosystems. This effort aims to establish a homegrown, practical, and world-leading technology system for data space and the DOA, providing a "Chinese solution" for these emerging technologies.
