The computer pioneer who built modern China

In April 1960, China’s first home-grown electronic digital general purpose computer – the Model 107 – went live. Xia Peisu, the machine’s engineer and designer, had just made history. After decades of war with Japan and the Chinese Civil War in the first half of the 20th Century, the country’s technological innovation had fallen behind much of the developed world. Later, caught in the politics of the Cold War, the newly established People’s Republic of China was cut off from aid and exports from capitalist nations in the West. Chinese scientists relied heavily on hardware and expertise from the Soviet Union to build up their computing power. Read More…