China's first domestically designed and built deep-sea, intelligent submarine cable laying vessel—the "Tianyi Navigator"—was officially commissioned in Shanghai yesterday (15th) and began full-system submarine cable laying tests, laying a solid foundation for computing power and artificial intelligence development.

The "Tianyi Navigator" has a length of 116 meters and possesses comprehensive capabilities for laying, maintaining, and repairing submarine cables in global waters. With a beam of 24 meters, a depth of 12 meters, and a full-load displacement of 18,000 tons, its cable compartment can carry 8,000 tons of submarine communication cables, ranking first in the world.

This submarine cable laying vessel integrates BeiDou satellite and GPS dual-mode positioning and is equipped with an intelligent dynamic positioning system. Using advanced digital wind speed sensors, position sensors, and other equipment, it can perceive subtle changes in currents, wind, and waves in real time, maintaining stable operations even in sea state 5.

The "Tianyi Navigator" is equipped with a dedicated 5.5-meter submarine cable burial device, capable of burying cables at depths of 1,000 meters, breaking China's record for submarine cable operation depth.

Communication submarine cables are high-speed transmission trunk lines connecting global computing power hubs and are indispensable key infrastructure for the artificial intelligence computing system. Submarine cables not only provide green, low-latency computing power support for AI but also formally integrate facilities such as underwater data centers into the national computing power resource pool, enabling a hybrid deployment of "land-based training + underwater inference."