High-tech center helps in virus fight
will have a negative impact on them, and the level of impact is uncertain.
Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines said like most other airlines, the unfavorable impact on the company’s domestic and international business is unpredictable, and it is unable to predict the influence on its financial performance this year.
Air China said as the contagion is going to have a negative impact on the company in the short term, it will optimize capacity, strengthen cost management and take proactive measures to minimize the impact of the pandemic.
The three carriers posted decent financial performance last year. In 2019, Guangzhou-based China Southern Airlines, the country’s largest carrier by passenger traffic, achieved revenue of 154.32 billion yuan ($21.7 billion), up 7.45 percent year-on-year. China Eastern recorded revenue of 120.86 billion yuan, up 5.16 percent year-on-year. Air China’s top line hit 136.18 billion yuan, down 0.43 percent yearon-year.
Meanwhile, global airlines are vying to stay viable by maximizing cargo freight transport operations using commercial aircraft.
Air New Zealand carried out its first cargo flight operated by a Boeing B787 Dreamliner from Auckland to Shanghai, with the flight arriving on March 31. The aircraft was loaded with premium commodities such as honey and seafood.
The carrier said this is an extremely difficult time with a significant reduction in capacity due to reduced travel demand, but cargo services will ensure key goods such as medical supplies and foodstuffs continue to flow freely in and out of New Zealand.
US carrier Delta Air Lines restarted its regularly scheduled flights between Shanghai and Detroit with cargo-only flights, as demand for medical supplies continues to grow in the US. The flights will operate three times weekly using Airbus A350 aircraft.
Qatar Airways became the first Middle Eastern carrier to resume belly-hold operations to all of its six destinations in China with passenger-configured aircraft. Additional cargo capacity is being added to its existing services, fueled by demand for the shipment of immediate-need goods.
“Demand from the cargo freight market has also dropped, but the declining volume is much less than commercial flights. Now, most airlines are carrying out belly-hold operations to transport medical supplies, and it will help to lift revenues. But the limited number of flights and freight volumes won’t help much with profit-making,” Lin said.
At a time when almost the entire world is ramping up the fight against COVID-19, the National Supercomputer Center in Tianjin has done its part by leveraging cutting-edge technologies, and this has paid off as an increasing number of users are using the center’s products for various solutions.
“Our user number has been increasing recently, which makes us more upbeat about the center’s prospects,” said Liu Guangming, director of the center.
The daily online users stand above 1,000, working on 8,000 projects, and the operation is nearly at the point of saturation, the center said.
According to the supercomputer center, it launched a computed tomography scan analysis system with operating language in both Chinese and English — powered by artificial intelligence — in early March, to help doctors treat patients with novel coronavirus pneumonia.
The system was tested and adopted by hundreds of experts from over 50 research and development institutions worldwide, and from over 30 hospitals across the nation.
It is based on the Tianhe Integrated Artificial Intelligence Innovation Platform developed using China’s Tianhe supercomputer at the center in Tianjin’s Binhai New Area.
“The first-time accuracy of the system in confirming the presence of the coronavirus has been praised by front-line doctors,” said Xu Bo, vice-director of the Tianjin Medical University Cancer Hospital and Institute.
The research and development team carried out training for the AI system nationwide in early March in a bid to further optimize and improve its accuracy and reliability. It is a powerful tool in evaluating CT images of suspected cases of the disease.
The launch of the English version aims to maximize the effectiveness of the platform and help international medical and scientific research teams, the center said.
The center teamed up with the Tianjin Medical University Cancer Hospital and Institute and other domestic hospitals and institutions to build an AI-supported assistance system over the past few months to analyze CT images of COVID-19 patients.
Other institutions involved in the project include the National Society of Artificial Intelligence in Oncology — part of the China Anti-Cancer Association — and the Professional Committee of Smart Medicine under the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence.
Other supercomputer centers in China have also joined forces in combating the COVID-19 outbreak.
In Guangzhou, DM Intelligence Pharm Co Ltd said the company has selected some 30 potential medications among 1,000 drugs through the Tianhe-2 supercomputer based in the city in a bid to help to treat COVID-19.
Company CEO Xie Weidong said the firm has teamed up with the supercomputer center to develop an algorithm to screen drugs and chemical compounds to develop medications with significant effect.
Apart from the center’s efforts to fight against the outbreak, the center also completed a national-level high-tech project on a large earthquake simulation recently, using the prototype of the nation’s newgeneration supercomputer Tianhe-3.