Xia Peisu: the mother of Chinese computing
28.7.2020
Translation: machine translated
Xia Peisu drove the Chinese computer industry forward. In April 1960, she developed the first general-purpose computer designed in China, the model 107.
In 1960, China, seen from the outside, was a country undermined by the Second Sino-Japanese War, civil wars and the breakdown of Sino-Soviet relations. In the midst of the rubble, the country is in turmoil, doing everything it can to regain its position as a world power. And against this backdrop, one woman, Xia Peisu, is regarded as the mother of Chinese computing.
Education and love story
Xia Peisu was born on 28 July 1923 in the municipality of Chongqing, in the south-east of the country, into a family of educators (https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200219-xia-peisu-the-computer-pioneer-who-built-modern-china). At the age of four, she attended primary school. In 1940, she graduated from secondary school with flying colours.
At the time, China was in the midst of the Second Sino-Japanese War, an eight-year conflict that claimed the lives of millions of Chinese civilians. When the war broke out in 1937, the Japanese conquered Nanking, the capital of the Republic of China. Xia Peisu's hometown, Chongqing, took in refugees from Nanking and also became the seat of the National Central University. She studied electrical engineering there from 1941.
In 1945, Xia Peisu graduated with a degree in electrical engineering. That same year, she met her future husband, physicist Yang Liming. Both obtained their doctorates two years later at the University of Edinburgh. In her thesis, she developed methodologies for more accurately predicting frequency and amplitude variations within electronic systems, which led to the development of a new method for predicting frequency and amplitude variations within electronic systems, which led to the development of a new method for predicting frequency and amplitude variations within electronic systems.lectronic systems, leading to wide-ranging applications for any system with an electrical frequency, from radios to TVs to computers.
In 1950, she obtained her doctorate and married Yang Liming. In 1951, the couple left the UK to teach at a university in their home country. They both had a common dream: to help develop a China in transition. But the country they return to is changed.
A little history of China
In 1949, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) won the Chinese civil war against the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party). The Republic of China becomes the People's Republic of China under the leadership of Mao Zedong.
The Second Sino-Japanese War particularly affects the country. All the higher education establishments, the financial centres, the main centre of industrial production and the Chinese government fled to the poorest region of Sichuan. The Chinese government is leading a kind of survival existence, as it is unable to invest in electrical engineering, weapons design, etc.
The CCP is trying to rebuild the lost infrastructure. The United States - which had supported the defeated Kuomintang party during the Chinese Civil War - refuses to provide aid and exports to the newly founded Communist country. Mao Zedong and the CCP turn to their Soviet neighbour to the north. The Soviet Union wanted to integrate China into the Communist bloc to the east and entered into a partnership with China. This aid is aimed at boosting the Chinese economy.
Source: researchgate.net
From dependence to independence
Xia Peisu, closely linked to the Sino-Soviet partnership, was convinced that China could only keep pace with other nations through research and development. In 1953, she was accepted into the computer research group of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)[http://english.ict.cas.cn/ns/es/201408/t20140830_127073.html] She was one of the three founding members of China's first computer research group. CAS became the epicentre of computer technology and research. Xia Peisu's wish to help shape the new China is becoming a reality.
In 1956, cooperation between Soviet experts, the CCP and CAS bore its first fruit. They identified computer technology as one of the four scientific and technological fields essential to the construction of China's national defence.
An electronic computer is essential to the construction of China's national defence.
An electronic computer is essential for the development of nuclear weapons, satellite or space programmes and the management of large complex transport systems. If China wants to be economically and militarily competitive on the world stage, it must engage in these areas. However, the Soviet Union, the United States and other powers are currently well ahead of the Chinese.
Their biggest problem? The field of information technology is non-existent. Mathematicians, engineers and physicists are pushing their research into the field, each from their own perspective. Before a computer can be built, its field of application must first be determined.
With her knowledge of electronics and mathematics, Xia Peisu is the ideal person. It was she who would be at the origin of computer science in China.
After a trip to China, Xia Peisu went to work on a computer.
After a research trip to Moscow and Leningrad in 1956, she translated computer knowledge from Russian into Chinese. This included a textbook that later became the theoretical basis for teaching computer science in China.
The same year, she began working on a book on computer science in China.
The same year, she gave the country's first computer theory course. At the time, to see a woman with so much influence was simply unimaginable. She also helped set up a computer science department at the Institute of Computer Technology (ICT). This was followed by the creation of the University of Science and Technology. Xia Peisu was involved in the development of computing courses at both institutions. As a lecturer, she supervised the training of hundreds of students between 1956 and 1962. Xia Peisu gave China the training programme it urgently needed.
In the late 1950s, China succeeded in reproducing two Soviet computer models, the 103 and 104, based on the Soviet M-3 and BESM-II computers, a development in which Xia Peisu was involved. As China progressed in computer production, the Sino-Soviet relationship threatened to dissolve. The leaders of both countries fight over which nation is the centre of the communist world and which is the path to global communism.
By 1960, relations between the two countries were so bad that the Soviet Union withdrew all material and advisory support from China. However, the Chinese computer industry did not cease to exist for all that.
Xia Peisu developed the 107 model from 1960. Unlike the 103 and 104, the 107 was not based on the Soviet model. It was the first Chinese computer to be designed and developed locally. The 107 would later be installed in educational establishments throughout China.
The mother of computing
During the 1960s, China developed increasingly powerful and sophisticated computers at CAS: from vacuum tube computers - like the 107 - to transistors and, in the 1970s and early 1980s, the circuits intégrés.
Meanwhile, Xia Peisu continued her research and trained young computer scientists and engineers. In 1978, she contributed to the creation of the Chinese Journal of Computers and the Journal of Computer Science and Technology, the country's first English-language computer journal.
It was during this time that Xia Peisu began her career as a computer scientist.
It was largely thanks to Xia Peisu that computer science in China became an independent field of study and that the country's IT sector prospered despite a rocky start. Many of his students would later celebrate their success. His former student Weiwu Hu, the chief architect of the Loongson CPU, names the chip in China's first processor-based computer Xia-50.
Xia Peisu dies at the age of 91 in Beijing. In China, she is regarded as the mother of computing. Each year, the China Computer Federation awards the Xia Peisu Prize to women scientists and engineers for their outstanding contributions and achievements in the fields of computing, industry, engineering and education.
Kevin Hofer
Senior Editor
kevin.hofer@digitecgalaxus.chFrom big data to big brother, Cyborgs to Sci-Fi. All aspects of technology and society fascinate me.
