In recent years, baidu's development has not been plain sailing.After the market entered the mobile era, it was tarnished.However, regardless of ups and downs, baidu has never been a moment to relax the attention of artificial intelligence and investment.
The nationwide landing of AI projects enables baidu to understand the needs of the industry, clarify the direction of progress, connect with the 'local atmosphere', and enable it to advance and decline freely.
For baidu, which has been on the road of artificial intelligence, there will be more 'hills' waiting for it after passing 'hills'.
Artificial intelligence is a protracted battle, requiring long-term persistence and courage to invest;In the process of intelligent transformation, enterprises need to draw a clear technical boundary, moral bottom line and their own role. It seems that there is no standard answer to every question.Li chose to take it a step further.
Held on August 26-29, 2019 China international intelligence industry fair (hereinafter referred to as the 'wisdom of expo'), li speech as the opening ceremony, and with the chongqing municipal government signed a strategic cooperation agreement, with the help of artificial intelligence, cloud computing, such as weapon, from the Angle such as driving, transportation, urban management, promote the 'brain' of chongqing.
'We need to make steady progress in the penetration of artificial intelligence into all industries and sectors to help them improve efficiency and improve people's feelings.'Robin li plans to use his own methodology to start the brainstorming.Under the guidance of the strategy of 'consolidating the mobile foundation and winning the AI era', baidu has entered the harvest period in the fields of intelligent driving, smart city and industrial intelligence.He understands that on the ai track, he needs to keep going.
01
From preacher to builder
In May 2017, the chongqing municipal government signed a strategic cooperation agreement with baidu.Over the next two years, Mr. Li traveled west many times and knew the city well.It is also because of familiarity that he is extremely sensitive to changes here.
Two years ago, artificial intelligence was in rapid development.Baidu's technology is mature enough, but robin li's main job is to teach the market to recognize this revolutionary technology correctly, to learn to observe and think from the perspective of AI era, and to re-recognize the new era.'The era of artificial intelligence is fundamentally solving the problem of communication between people and everything.'At the time, Mr. Li positioned himself as a 'preacher.'
A year later, li yanhong, back in the mountain town, has a good idea of what changes with each passing day.At the 2018 wisdom expo, he dispelled three major myths about artificial intelligence -- that artificial intelligence does not necessarily look like human beings, but needs to release the value of human brains by means of machines. There is no 'threat theory'.Formally 'preaching', but only as a small part of his job.
More often, li puts his energy into landing AI projects.In this year, baidu embedded the artificial intelligence system into the corresponding industrial manufacturing cluster in chongqing, established an intelligent judicial service system with chongqing higher people's court, and built a meteorological AI deep learning platform with chongqing meteorological bureau.He has realised that markets are awakened far more quickly, and with far greater receptivity, than they ever imagined.The convenience brought by innovative technologies can lead the market to actively embrace artificial intelligence.
Talent · intelligent climate prediction system
In fact, chongqing is not the only city that has been invigorated.During this year, cities that have signed strategic cooperation agreements with baidu have successively included baoding, yangquan, Qingdao, xiongan and tianjin, covering many fields such as autonomous driving, intelligent transportation, urban public service, institutional construction and talent training.It is only 8 years since baidu mastered language processing, machine translation, voice, image and other technologies and started to lay out the artificial intelligence market, and only 2 years since it opened up the core AI technologies.
The market is entering the era of artificial intelligence at an unprecedented rate, and Mr. Li is aware that continuing to play the role of evangelist may be a way to fight back.In a sense, ai is similar to the 'experience economy'. How to implement technology and make customers perceive value is the key to success.
Taking smart chongqing project as an example, the new smart city construction plan of chongqing municipality (2019-2022) has been officially issued, which plans to build a new 'trinity' of intelligent industry, intelligent manufacturing and intelligent application led by intelligent big data.Chongqing is well aware of what the digital blueprint looks like, and needs builders as well as evangelists.
Over the past year, companies have taken their understanding of ai to a whole new level.Realizing the importance of 'getting down to earth', li started to shift his positioning and play the role of 'builder' to accelerate the implementation of AI projects.With mature landing projects across the country in the early stage, baidu is very clear about the needs of customers and their own capabilities.
After the industry is integrated into artificial intelligence, it immediately gains the value brought by the technology dividend, so a large number of demands are concentrated into opportunities for baidu.It is the progress of The Times and the industry that drives baidu forward rapidly, and also facilitates the role change of robin li.The nationwide landing of AI projects enables baidu to understand the needs of the industry, clarify the direction of progress, connect with the 'local atmosphere', and enable it to advance and decline freely.
02
Technology over mountains, baidu over mountains
For an industry that is still growing, the only constant is change.Over unknown hills, the technology has gradually entered a mature stage;Companies also have to climb over the hills as technology evolves.Can't escape, can only grasp the nettle.
As artificial intelligence projects continue to be implemented, companies have come to understand the prerequisites for their careers: big data, cloud computing, deep learning, and all kinds of identification capabilities.Gradually clear technical coordinates, so that the enterprise has the direction of progress, also ushered in an unprecedented challenge -- artificial intelligence test enterprise comprehensive strength, the threshold of the industry is higher than imagined.
Technology to mature, but also let li yanhong see ahead.How to let baidu beyond the cycle, how to let baidu tramp rhythm?It was something he had to think about all the time.
After graduating from Peking University with a degree in information management, li went to the state university of New York at buffalo to complete his master's degree in computer science.His cross-disciplinary overseas study has broadened his knowledge and established his technology-oriented values.No one can predict the future, but knowledge allows you to see it as clearly as possible.'For baidu, the key [to success] is faith in technology.'Mr Li said.
The point of technology will not be at the foot, but in the distance: at the foot, continue to layout the mobile Internet is still an opportunity, but the demographic dividend is slowly fading;From afar, enterprises must begin to understand the demands of the market and users after the mobile era, and define their exclusive core competitiveness.
'The era of mobile Internet is over, and the future opportunity is in artificial intelligence.'This is the direction of technology, so li believes that 'AI thinking' is bound to replace 'Internet thinking'.
As an old Chinese saying goes, 'forewarned is the key to success; unforewarned is the key to failure.'While other companies are still reaping the demographic dividend of the Internet, baidu is starting to lay out artificial intelligence.
As early as 2000, li yanhong set out to accumulate artificial intelligence technology;By 2010, I have mastered the r&d ability of natural language processing, machine translation, speech, image, knowledge map, machine learning, data mining, user understanding and other technologies.In 2019, baidu brain has been upgraded to version 5.0, opening up more than 210 AI technology capabilities, and the number of developers has reached 1.3 million, with the average number of developers' daily calls increasing by 108% year-on-year.
Now, baidu has formed five core capabilities of baidu brain, intelligent driving, intelligent cloud, Internet of things and smart city, and various solutions have comprehensively penetrated into many links of the industry.It is worth mentioning that baidu, together with maifei technology, baowu group, Intel and other companies, has extensively promoted baidu brain and intelligent cloud in agriculture, industry, service industry and other fields, forming many benchmark projects such as pest monitoring, intelligent ladle, soil residue cleaning and so on.
Through the implementation and training of many AI projects, baidu has gradually accumulated the technical ability to comprehensively improve the 'intelligence level' of artificial intelligence.
As for the competitors, the history of their ai layout is much simpler. Hua xiansheng, vice President of alibaba and head of alibaba cloud ai center, said that alibaba first proposed the concept of 'intelligent brain' in April 2016.It wasn't until July this year that tencent cloud launched WeCity future city, a new smart city brand.Limited by size and capability, other vendors' solutions are stuck in the corner...Companies present projects and success stories, but in terms of number and size, they cannot match baidu's -- baidu is already several places ahead in terms of its ability to lay out the future.
03
Li yanhong crosses 'hills'
But the higher the lead, the higher the risk.
Precisely because of the leading edge in the field of artificial intelligence is relatively obvious, baidu continues to move forward with little reference experience.Technology trends and industry demand never stop at the same place. Relying only on the 'inventory' in the toolbox to provide services is obviously not able to cope with the complex and difficult test of the future, and finally fell down the hill.
To maintain its leading edge, baidu needs to reinvent itself to find the most suitable state for the development needs of the artificial intelligence industry. No matter how the outside world fluctuates and how the technology evolves, it can change with the fastest speed. Therefore, the starting point of this battle is the organizational structure of the company.
At the end of 2018, li yanhong upgraded the intelligent cloud business unit (ACU) to the intelligent cloud business group (ACG), which serves as the back-end database of the entire baidu product line, and also carries the development of AI to B and cloud business, so as to realize the efficient planning and organization of resources and comprehensive coordination of front-end business and technology platform.
'This organizational restructuring will strengthen the ability of pooling resources to 'fight big battles and fight hard', and help baidu customers complete intelligent transformation and enter the era of AI as soon as possible.'Mr. Li has stated his goals.
Developed tactics up, down to find 'source of troops'.At home and abroad, there has been a talent gap in artificial intelligence for a long time.According to China's education department, the current shortage of artificial intelligence talents in China is more than 5 million, and the ratio of supply and demand in China is 1 in 10, which is seriously unbalanced.
Throughout 2018, baidu has put a lot of effort into talent development.First, it started 'liaoyuan plan' in the first half of the year, cultivated more than 5,000 artificial intelligence talents and selected more than 60 start-up companies to enter the AI accelerator.In the middle of this year, it also launched the first online course of Apollo autonomous driving to the world, and simultaneously launched the artificial intelligence education laboratory in xiongan.
Data show that baidu has cultivated nearly 550,000 ai related talents in 2018.
To defend the fruits of victory, it is necessary to invest on a larger scale.Nevertheless because baidu is forerunner with technology all the time, because this is high, investment always is baidu style.The difference is that future investment should be tilted as far as possible towards the field of artificial intelligence.
In an earlier interview, li said baidu's overall r&d investment has reached 20 billion yuan in 2015-2016.Starting from 2017, 15% of the annual revenue will be spent on research and development. Based on the annual revenue of 102.3 billion yuan in 2018, the investment in research and development in 2019 will be no less than 15 billion yuan.'Everything [from now on] is ai-related.'Li added.
According to the Chinese patent protection association released 'ai technology patent in-depth analysis report', China's patent reserve in this field has reached 76,876, baidu with 2,368 applications in the number of domestic applicants ranked first, far more than tencent, alibaba and other enterprises, become the 'leader' of China's ai.
04
conclusion
Looking back on li yanhong's 'big plan' for artificial intelligence, I can't help but feel emotional.
In recent years, baidu's development has not been plain sailing.After the market entered the mobile era, it was tarnished.However, regardless of ups and downs, baidu has never been a moment to relax the attention of artificial intelligence and investment.
At present, the connotation of artificial intelligence is still being enriched, the process of 'industry +AI' is still advancing, and enterprises are drawing their own blueprint for the development of their industries.What can be clear is that artificial intelligence is not recitation, there is no absolute right answer, but more like a discussion question, testing the comprehensive ability of enterprises to integrate technical cognition, industry understanding, customer needs and other comprehensive abilities.