TencentOS Server

2024: Product Release

On July 23, 2024, it became known that China had released a national operating system with support for domestic processors. Tencent Cloud has introduced a new version of the fork of the CentOS Linux distribution - TencentOS Server V3, which supports a number of processors developed in China, such as Kunpeng, Hygon and Feiteng. The system is intended exclusively for users in the PRC and is aimed at cloud use cases.

TencentOS Server V3 is a fork of the classic CentOS, supports the seventh and eighth CentOS branches and is aimed at reducing the load on the CPU and RAM. As a host system, the OS consumes no more than 2% of the total amount of computing resources, the developers say.

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According to Cnews, the new operating system supports GPU virtualization and is suitable for working with artificial intelligence models. One of the key features of TencentOS is support for Kunpeng processors developed by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon. These processors are based on the ARM architecture and have up to 64 ARMV8 cores operating at frequencies up to 2.6 GHz. The Kunpeng 920 is positioned as the "most powerful" ARM processor. Other supported processors include Hygon, which previously released x86 processors based on the AMD Zen architecture, and Feiteng, developed by Tianjin Phytium Technology and using ARM technologies.

According to The Register, TencentOS is already being used to ensure the operation of the popular Chinese social network WeChat, which has reduced the cost of the application's server infrastructure by 43%.

Earlier in February 2024, it became known that the Chinese company Loongson is ready to release the first server chip 3C6000 on LA664 cores, which is supposedly capable of competing with Zen 3 processors in terms of performance. However, it is not yet known whether TencentOS will support Loongson's LoongArch processors.^[1]

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