CEC and Tianjin to jointly build homegrown OS Kylin

China Electronics Corp, the country's largest State-owned comprehensive electronic information enterprise group, has deepened strategic cooperation with Tianjin municipal government to jointly build a homegrown operating system named Kylin that will support artificial intelligence, cloud computing and other next-generation technologies.

The Kylin Software is an integration of China Standard Software and Tianjin Kylin Information -- two of China's major software developers, which are affiliates of CEC.

CEC will invest tens of billions of yuan, and nurture an elite team of over 10,000 researchers to develop a domestic operating system in the next five years, while building three products, namely a desktop and server operating system, a cloud operating system and an embedded operating system, according to CEC.

Chen Ximing, deputy general manager of CEC, said operating system is the core of both the software and computer's core (central processing unit), noting the Kylin Software will focus on making a breakthrough in core technologies and enhancing the quality of products, and not just grabbing a bigger slice in the market.

Chen added the domestic operating system serves an important pillar for driving the construction of new infrastructure and boosting the development of digital economy.

Ni Guangnan, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said more efforts are needed to accelerate the independent innovations in core technologies and establish a safe domestic information technology system.

China's software operating system industry is currently dominated by foreign companies, such as Microsoft's Windows, Google's Android and Apple's Mac OS.

Established in 1989, CEC is one of world-leading large-scale electronics and IT corporations. It focuses on providing IT products and services, runs a complete software industry chain and core operating system, with strong industrial competitiveness and research and development capabilities.