European Union and China Interconnect High-Speed Networks

Communication and collaboration among 45 million researchers and students across Europe and China will be greatly facilitated by a new Sino-European high-speed network infrastructure – ORIENT (Oriental Research Infrastructure to European Networks). This project, supported by the 6th Framework Program of the European Union, focuses on common Sino-European research including radio astronomy, sustainable development, meteorology and grid computing systems.

"ORIENT enables truly international research co-operation, by making geographic location almost irrelevant," commented Viviane Reding, European Information Society and Media Commissioner. "Access to applications such as telemedicine, digital libraries and e-learning will help the general public, as well as the research community, to build academic and cultural links between Europe and China and an open exchange of opinions and expertise between Chinese and European researchers. And at the same time, ORIENT will bring together the world's best minds to tackle global challenges such as climate change and sustainable development."

ORIENT will connect Europe's GÉANT2, the world's most advanced international research and education infrastructure including CESNET, the Czech national research and education network, with the Chinese research networks CERNET and CSTNET. Scheduled to go live in the last quarter of 2006, it will link over 200 Chinese universities and research institutions with an overland route via Siberia, at speeds of up to 2.5 Gbps. The project will be co-ordinated by the DANTE research networking organisation in Europe and the CERNET network in China.

The ORIENT launch follows Commissioner Reding's meeting with Mr. Xu Guanhua, Minister of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China, in Beijing in January 2006. At the meeting both sides agreed that the e-infrastructure (advanced networking and grid technologies) and its applications would play a key role in economic and social development and acknowledged the high importance of bilateral cooperation. Commissioner Reding, during her visit in China, had emphasised the importance of cooperation among researchers and students for the development of open societies.

ORIENT will provide a complementary service to TEIN2 (Trans-Eurasia Information Network), the Asia-Pacific research network which went live in December 2005. TEIN2 links ten countries, including China, at speeds of up to 622 Mbps. Each network will benefit from the connectivity provided by the other, increasing capacity and providing backup in the event of failure.

In addition to DANTE and CERNET, the project is supported by several European NRENs, namely GARR (Italy), DFN (Germany), RENATER (France), UKERNA (UK), GRNET (Greece) and CESNET (Czech Republic).

About CERNET

CERNET provides Internet services for Chinese universities, institutes, schools and other non-profit organisations, reaching over 200 sites in 31 provinces in mainland China. CERNET also has several other global connections to North America, Asia and the Pacific, encompassing about 1,300 universities and institutions and about 15 million end users. CERNET provides a national network platform on which many large national network technology projects are carried out and also supports many applications, including on-line recruiting for over 1,500 universities, distance learning, digital libraries, grid computing, video conferencing and voice over IP solutions.

About DANTE

DANTE is a non-profit organisation whose primary mission is to plan, build and manage research and education networks on behalf of Europe's National Research and Education Networks. Established in 1993, DANTE has been fundamental to the success of pan-European research and education networking. DANTE operates GÉANT2, which provides the data communications infrastructure essential to the success of many research projects across Europe. DANTE is involved in initiatives worldwide to interconnect countries in other regions with one another and to GÉANT2. Among other activities, DANTE is currently managing initiatives focused on the Mediterranean, Latin American and Asia-Pacific regions.

(More information on DANTE available at http://www.dante.net/orient/.)

The CESNET association has been founded by universities and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The association is currently financed mainly from the resources of the governmental Committee for the Research and Education and the resources of the members of the association. The association performs research and development in the area of information and communication technologies, building and developing the national gigabit optical network, CESNET2, designed for research and educational purposes. Due to the research activities and results achieved, the CESNET association acts as a representative of the Czech Republic in the project within which a pan-European network called GEANT2 is constructed, actively taking part also in the implementation of this project.