The event highlights and relies upon the groups in China who are installing academic and research networks. The Institute of Medical Information is one such group, and Tsinghua University's CERNET network center is another.

The IMI is analagous to the US National Library of Medicine. It does not contain as many collections of biomedical literature, but it is a central point for gathering and disseminating medical information. The IMI is home to a MEDLARS Center and a WHO Collaborating Centre for Health and Biomedical Information.

The IMI was the logical location for the hub of CMINET - China medical information network - which connects eleven key medical universities to each other and to the global Internet. In addition to serving as a national and international medical library, the IMI hosts the network center of CMINET. IMI staff operate the center and help grow the network. They answer questions from users throughout China, and travel across the country to train systems operators and end users.

These responsibilities are greater than available resources, which takes a toll on leaders and staff and slows the development of services. Quarters for the network center are cramped (a problem that may be solved when the Institute moves later this year). And staff are seriously overworked - is not unusual for system operators to sleep by their machines to keep them running through the night.

IMI staff continue to struggle successfully to operate the network and to enhance it, but here are critical needs for additional staff, equipment, training, and knowledge resources (databases and journal subscriptions). If CMINET and the Institute are to realize their full potential, more help is needed from China and from the West.

Tsinghua and the CERNET network center are equally vital resources, not only for physicians and researchers in medicine, but also for academics and professionals in other fields. CERNET is China's national research and education network, installed with support from the World Bank and China, and designed to serve more than 1000 universities.

The CERNET backbone connects ten regional nodes and provides a path to the global Internet for users throughout China. CMINET is linked to CERNET, and during the demonstration the dialogue between physicians in Xi'an and UCSF/Stanford will transit a microwave link from XMU to a CERNET regional center in Xi'an (Xi'an Jiaotong University). From Jiaoda it will transit the CERNET backbone to Tsinghua and reach the global Internet. (The Xi'an Jiaotong network center is supporting the demonstration by giving priority to XMU and cutting other lines so that we have the maximum available bandwidth.)

Traffic over CERNET within China is heavy, and the gateway at Tsinghua through which users reach the global Internet is saturated. Enhancements to CERNET are under way ('CERNET II') which will increase its bandwidth, but demand for the Internet among academic and research communities will continue to exceed the supply. The deployment and development of CERNET were accomplished by extraordinary efforts of network architects and engineers, but as with CMINET there are urgent needs for increased support for future development and evolutions.

Each of these groups, with other network builders, consists of people, of course, which is easy to lose sight of when the focus is on the technology. People envisioned the networks and implemented them. People make sacrifices to operate them. Those we have met are remarkable - they freely share what they know and have, and work tirelessly to create more ways to bring all of us together.