Storage devices and systems are the foundation of data, playing a critical role in the security of the digital economy and national security.
For more than 20 years, Feng Dan has dedicated herself to one goal: developing Chinese-made storage systems, devices, and chips to ensure that massive data storage becomes safer, more reliable, and more efficient.
In the 1990s, while pursuing her PhD at Huazhong Institute of Science and Technology (now Huazhong University of Science and Technology), Feng Dan realized that foreign companies monopolized the storage systems and devices available at the time.
This motivated her to focus on storage research with the determination to break China's reliance on foreign technologies.
After graduating from the doctoral program, Feng Dan stayed at HUST, continuing her work in storage research. She and her team developed storage defragmentation and efficient retrieval technologies to address the issue of slower access speeds due to the increasing storage of text, images, and videos on mobile phones. These innovations improved the performance of several leading domestic cell phones by over 50%.
"Doing scientific research is like rock climbing" Feng said :"Once you choose a direction, every step needs to be solid and well-founded."
In 2004, Feng became the chief scientist for a National Basic Research Program (973 Program) project, leading her team to work tirelessly in the lab as they pursued cutting-edge mass storage systems.
After two years of hard work, their storage system reached an internationally advanced level, placing in the top four in an international storage competition. Feng Dan believes that the journey from zero to one in information storage technology is insufficient—strengthening the system is essential. While continuing to tackle core technical challenges, her team also focused on promoting the localization of storage devices.
Relying on the National High-Tech Research and Development Program (863 Program), Feng Dan led a major mass storage project, working with large IT enterprises to deepen industry-academia collaboration. Together, they broke the foreign monopoly on high-end storage systems and their core technologies, achieving a breakthrough from technological dependence to independent innovation in China's storage industry.
Today, various manufacturers have successfully applied the team's technological achievements, enabling domestic alternatives in critical sectors such as finance, telecommunications, and security. The market share of domestically produced storage systems in China has grown from less than 5% before the project's inception to over 60%.
"National needs guide the efforts of researchers," Feng explained. With the explosive growth of general artificial intelligence, the demand for computing power is skyrocketing, and corresponding storage capacity requirements are also rising.
To meet the challenges posed by AI, big data, and the metaverse in terms of scale and performance, Feng Dan and her team are working on next-generation storage systems and technologies.
Feng Dan noted that storage medium chips remain a weak link in storage system research. Going forward, her team plans to delve deeper into storage chips, integrated computing-storage chip architectures, and related technologies, aiming to produce continuous breakthroughs in storage innovation and cultivate more top-tier innovative talent.
