Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 353: First Generation AI Drone Algorithm

During the period of late July, HaiLan Automobile once again grabbed many news headlines, but it was not a good thing. There were more negative news smearing by various competitors, which once put HaiLan Automobile into a public opinion crisis.

Fortunately, HaiLan Auto's public relations department acted quickly, stirring up trouble through a series of campaigns to expose negative information about other competitors, and then diverted attention through other hot news, especially news about celebrities cheating.

Finally, the situation was brought under control.

This incident, to some extent, also means that HaiLan Automobile has officially taken the opposite side of many traditional automobile manufacturers... Starting at RMB 360,000, the HaiLan SLMC, a mid-size sedan that focuses on families and has sci-fi attributes, has become a competitor to a large number of automobile manufacturers.

But at the same time, this has also allowed more people to see the huge potential market for smart electric vehicles and attracted more capital investment.

At the same time, a large number of traditional automobile manufacturers have also begun to actively transform their strategies and have successively built their own new energy vehicle brands. For example, Guangcheng Automobile next door has vigorously developed a pure electric vehicle platform. If nothing unexpected happens, they will launch pure electric vehicles under their own brand next year.

Some other traditional domestic automobile manufacturers also have similar plans.

However, BYD is still the best. Their low-end and mid-range electric vehicles are doing well, with sales of tens of thousands of units...

Of course, there is still a huge gap between it and HaiLan Automobile... HaiLan Automobile's annual sales are 700,000 to 800,000, and it is heading for over one million next year, but the sales of BYD's electric vehicles, including plug-in hybrids, are not very optimistic.

As for other new energy vehicles in the country, it is even worse. There are a lot of various old-fashioned cars that cheat on subsidies mixed in with them. Their sales seem to be very high, but there are only a few of them on the market. If someone is interested and checks carefully, they will find that... these old-fashioned cars that cheat on subsidies are all in the car graveyard.

Therefore, domestic manufacturers of so-called new energy sources must eliminate those manufacturers who cheat on subsidies and make money for the elderly.

In addition to traditional automobile manufacturers, there are some forces worth noting, that is, some so-called new forces manufacturers with big capital behind them, especially those invested by Internet companies, such as Xiaopeng, Future, Lixiang, Weima, Noto, Lingpao, etc.

These new forces manufacturers all saw Xu Shenxue developing smart electric cars and creating the HaiLan Automobile, and then big capitals invested in it and created their own car manufacturers... These new forces manufacturers spent a lot of money and used the entrepreneurial thinking of the Internet to make cars. Naturally, some of them failed while others did well.

But overall, it has effectively promoted the rapid development of domestic electric vehicles.

However, they currently basically have no car licenses and need to cooperate with traditional car manufacturers to build cars...so they are still very different from Hailan Automobile.

HaiLan Automobile obtained a car license not long after its establishment, even before it built any cars.

Global automobile manufacturers, including some investors from other industries, saw that Hailan Automobile was selling well all over the world and its sales volume was increasing year by year. They could not help but start their own electric vehicle plans one after another.

But... currently they are only making electric cars, which at most have some assisted driving functions, which are very different from Hailan Automobile's autonomous driving.

The most advanced automotive computing chip on the market is the EYEQ3 series chip from Mobileye, a subsidiary of Zhiyun Semiconductor. However, the computing power is very limited. The solution only provides a single chip with a computing power of 0.256TOPS, which can only be used for the most basic L2 level of assisted driving, that is, lane keeping and adaptive cruise control functions.

At the same time, NVIDIA, a subsidiary of Zhiyun Semiconductor, also released the Drive PX automotive-grade computing platform to the market last year. This system can provide 12TOPS of computing power.

Tesla's latest intelligent driving platform, namely FSD, and its hardware system, namely WH2.0, are based on this system of NVIDIA. If nothing unexpected happens, it should be available on their new models this year.

As for other car companies, they mainly use Zhiyun Semiconductor's EYEQ3 platform, mainly for assisted driving... Because of this system, Zhiyun Semiconductor directly provides a complete set of pure vision solutions, even the algorithms are directly packaged and provided to customers. Car manufacturers can take it back and install it in the car themselves, and then do some adaptation.

Many traditional car manufacturers do this.

And those so-called new force automobile manufacturers are no exception...at least that's the case for now.

This is also their electric car, just an electric car...but Hailan Automobile's electric car is a smart electric car.

The gap between the two can be seen from the computing power gap of automotive-grade computing chips... the gap between 0.0256TOPS and dozens or even more than a hundred TOPS.

These computing power gaps, coupled with the autonomous driving algorithms trained based on AI technology, are enough to make a huge difference in their performance.

Similarly, this is also one of the core factors why Hailan Automobile is popular all over the world... Hailan Automobile is not bragging, but can really drive automatically.

Why do so many wealthy people around the world buy Hailan cars? It’s not just because it is an electric car, but also because of its autonomous driving technology.

This is something that no other car manufacturer, no matter whether it is a new force or a traditional car manufacturer, can match.

Even the current Tesla cannot even see the taillights of the Hailan car... This is also the reason why Tesla is determined to develop its own automotive-grade computing chips. You cannot buy the most advanced automotive-grade computing chips by purchasing them.

Xu Shenxue does not sell the most advanced EYQ series chips to the outside world, which are the chips jointly developed by Hailan Automobile and Zhiyun Semiconductor.

But there is only one car manufacturer that has such determination and technology, and that is Tesla. The others cannot.

Automotive-grade computing chips, combined with AI training to develop autonomous driving algorithms... this whole set of requirements requires too much investment and too high a level of technology. Conventional car manufacturers, including the so-called new forces, cannot handle it.

All these factors have led to the fact that as of 16, the only car that truly has autonomous driving function is Hailan Automobile. Other so-called new energy vehicles, smart driving vehicles, or electric vehicles are all at the L2 level.

But then again, for the domestic mid- and low-end markets, smart driving doesn’t really matter.

The core demand of the domestic mid- and low-end electric vehicle market is not intelligent driving. For a car that costs only tens or hundreds of thousands of yuan, no one expects it to be able to drive automatically. Even if it dares to drive automatically, the owner will not feel comfortable letting it drive.

In this extremely large electric vehicle market, the core demand is lower sports car costs, that is, fuel efficiency.

Then add some miscellaneous high-end configurations, such as refrigerators, color TVs, heated seats and so on.

Therefore, the main market for mid- and low-end electric vehicles at this stage is not the ordinary individual purchasing customer group, but the large online car-hailing and taxi markets.

These online ride-hailing drivers who make a living by picking up passengers are the biggest customers of electric vehicles.

These days, it is very profitable to use an electric car to run an online-hailing taxi... Using an electric car to run an online-hailing taxi can save thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars on gas in a month, and these are all extra profits. If you drive diligently, you can even earn back the money you paid for the car in more than a year.

This market segment is also where BYD is currently focusing its efforts, and the results are quite good.

In the huge automobile market, there are numerous vertical categories. As long as we seize one of them and make it bigger and stronger, we can build up the market and then expand from point to surface.

Unfortunately, few people can do this.

A large number of so-called new forces manufacturers, and even some traditional automobile manufacturers, have set their sights on Hailan Automobile, trying to enter the field of high-end electric vehicles and make huge money.

But I don’t have that ability... In recent years, many traditional car manufacturers like to modify their own gasoline cars, then turn them into electric versions, and then sell them to the public at a higher price. The prices are extremely expensive, often hundreds of thousands.

Do you really think consumers are fools?
Most consumers are willing to buy Hailan cars that cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars not for the car itself, but for the autonomous driving technology and the sci-fi feel of the vehicle.

Hailan Automobile sells high-tech, science fiction, and the future...

Traditional car manufacturers only made an electric car without any black technology. The interior is still in the old-fashioned style. There is no way such a car can be sold.

But then again, if you ask these traditional car manufacturers, including those new forces, to really develop black-tech smart electric cars, they won’t be able to do it... Not to mention the hardware problem, the software aspect is not easy just for an autonomous driving algorithm, which involves the field of AI.

Those companies can’t handle this aspect!
Nowadays, all the companies that are playing with AI technology on the planet are large high-tech enterprises. They are spending more money than others, but they don’t achieve much.

People from Google once revealed to the outside world that their AI technology is about three years behind Zhiyun Group’s AI technology.

However, Xu Shenxue said… Three years, Gu Gou, you really dare to brag!

In Xu Shenxue's opinion, Google's AI technology level can at best reach the level of Zhiyun Group in 11, which was the level when Zhiyun Group just announced its AI voice assistant. It is at least five years away from the current AI technology level announced by Zhiyun Group.

If we compare it with Zhiyun Group’s actual AI technology level, the gap is already ten years…

Because Zhiyun Group's AI technology is actually ahead of its time, the ones currently announced are already backward technologies... This is also the Zhiyun AI technology that outsiders know, such as its application in autonomous driving.

The truly advanced AI technology is actually used in some secret projects and has never been announced to the public, and the outside world knows nothing about it.

Therefore, the actual level of Zhiyun Group's AI technology is at least five years ahead of what is announced on the surface.

The difference between the two added together is at least ten years.

In other words, after five years of catching up by Google and other companies, the gap has not narrowed but has widened.

It's just that this kind of thing only needs to be known by a few people including Xu Shenxue, and there's no need to brag about it outside... Xu Shenxue can't say outside that the 'Advanced Intelligent UAV Combat System' that our Zhiyun's AI research department is developing has an awesome algorithm... It's just that the computing power of the current onboard chips is still a little lacking and can't handle such a large amount of data, otherwise it would have flown into the sky long ago.

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On July 28, Xu Shenxue took a special plane to Dongcheng and inspected the local branch of Zhiyun Group.

Zhiyun Group’s branch in Dongcheng is mainly a research and development center, and it also has a subsidiary engaged in the smart home field: Xindian Technology.

Xindian Technology is also a major subsidiary of Zhiyun Group that is engaged in the smart home field. Its business lines mainly include smart TVs, smart sweepers, smart refrigerators and many other home appliances.

Of course, Zhiyun Group itself does not conduct much research on pure home appliances. For matters in the home appliance field, it often cooperates with the industry's top home appliance companies. Xindian Technology, a subsidiary of Zhiyun Group, is only responsible for the research and development of the intelligent part and subsequent integration.

Zhiyun Group is such a large group company with many product lines. Except for the core business lines such as mobile phones, tablets, and computers which are directly under the group head office, other product lines are actually carried out through various subsidiaries.

Such as software and Internet businesses, including the development and operation of many commercial software, the development and operation of operating systems, and the system mall, these businesses are all undertaken by Zhiyun Software Technology Co., Ltd.

Supercomputing, server, cloud computing and other businesses are handled by Zhiyun Computing Technology Co., Ltd.

The logic chip design business is under the responsibility of Zhiyun Semiconductor Co., Ltd.

The storage chip design business is handled by Zhiyun Storage Co., Ltd.

The semiconductor manufacturing business is handled by Zhiyun Microelectronics.

Satellite business is handled by Zhiyun Satellite.

Zhiyun Logistics is responsible for air transportation, land transportation and other transportation, as well as warehousing business. Zhiyun Logistics has several subsidiaries including Zhiyun Aviation, Zhiyun Land Transportation, Zhiyun Property, etc. Zhiyun Logistics is the core component of Zhiyun's global supply chain and a very important subsidiary in the Zhiyun Group system.

There is also Zhiyun Manufacturing Co., Ltd., which is engaged in the business of smart terminal spare parts.

Then there are more than a dozen other first-tier subsidiaries with the prefix Zhiyun.

These subsidiaries have varying numbers of sub-subsidiaries under them.

The above-mentioned wholly-owned subsidiaries/subsidiaries constitute the backbone of the entire system of Zhiyun Group.

The branches and leaves are a large number of holding companies such as Huaxing Technology, which makes screens, Desay Battery, which makes batteries for smart terminals, and so on.

There are also a large number of companies that have made strategic investments and hold certain shares, including Wecoo system companies such as Wecoo Electronics, Wecoo Industrial, and Wecoo Trading, as well as a large number of third-party companies, such as Qianding Technology, which is engaged in touch ICs and fingerprint recognition, and BOE, which is engaged in screens.

These companies eventually formed a very large industrial chain that covers the entire consumer electronics industry chain and the semiconductor industry chain.

It not only supports Zhiyun Group's huge business lines, but also supports the rapid development of the domestic consumer electronics industry chain and the semiconductor industry chain. It not only meets its own needs, but also exports in large quantities.

According to Zhiyun Group’s internal statistics, the export value of Zhiyun Group’s various products alone, including smart terminals, semiconductors, smart terminal parts and components, software, and Internet services, reached more than US$230 billion last year.

This only calculates the value of Zhiyun Group's own products. For example, if a domestic mobile phone manufacturer exports a mobile phone worth $100, and $10 of its components are provided by Zhiyun Group, then only the $10 portion will be calculated.

The other ninety US dollars were contributed by other companies and were not included in Zhiyun Group’s internal statistics.

If we also include related products from other manufacturers... then it would be too exaggerated.

Zhiyun Group is now like a big tree, deeply rooted in the electronic consumer and semiconductor industry chain... and even formed a strong interest-binding relationship of life and death.

How many affiliated companies rely on Zhiyun Group's orders to survive.

Many affiliated companies are counting on the core components and accessories in the semiconductor or other smart terminal fields provided by Zhiyun Group to enhance their product competitive advantages.

Many related companies are counting on relying on Zhiyun Group's overseas channels and then going overseas, especially the domestic Internet industry going overseas, basically they are relying on Zhiyun Group to force their way out... because Zhiyun Group has APP distribution channels covering the world, namely the three major channels of Zhiyun APP Mall, Weiku Mall, and Xiaolan Mall.

For domestic Internet companies, whether they are engaged in games, social networking, or other miscellaneous Internet services, if they want to go overseas and open up overseas markets, their first stop is the overseas channel of Shangzhi Cloud Mall, through which they can distribute their products to markets around the world.

Therefore, most of the domestic Internet industry, regardless of whether they are Internet giants or new startups, are very grateful to Zhiyun Group and even have a good impression of it... Especially some small and medium-sized Internet companies. The first version of the software they develop is the Yun OS version, which is first tested in the Zhiyun channel and then expanded to the Android channel after success.

I wonder how many Internet SMEs have been supported and driven by Zhiyun Mall!
A large number of domestic small and medium-sized Internet companies, or individual developers, made their first fortune through the Zhiyun Mall channel and then gradually developed.

During this process, a large number of Internet companies have emerged that specialize in overseas markets, trying to replicate Yihai Technology's path to success.

Yihai Technology has been able to develop basically by relying on Zhiyun Mall, which allows it to directly market its game works to the global market and thus generate huge revenue.

To this day, more than 60% of Yihai Technology's revenue still comes from overseas markets... This is fundamentally different from other large-scale Internet companies in China.

Many netizens are saying: Although Yihai Technology also harvests leeks, and harvests them particularly hard, Yihai Technology harvests overseas leeks, while other domestic Internet giants only harvest domestic leeks...

It's useless to be a bully at home. If you are so awesome, why don't you learn from Yihai Technology and reap the profits overseas?

In the huge system of Zhiyun Group, Zhiyun Group's branch in Dongcheng and Xindian Technology are not considered mainstream businesses. This was Xu Shenxue's first inspection in this place many years after the local branch was established.

Therefore, the management of the Dongcheng branch attached great importance to Xu Shenxue's arrival... After so many years, the boss finally looked at us straight in the eye. We must seize this opportunity and perform well.

Promotion and salary increase are just around the corner!
At the same time, the local staff were all drooling with excitement after hearing the news... The Zhiyun branch in their own territory has been open for so many years, and the locals have been looking forward to a visit from the richest man Xu.

As long as Mr. Xu comes over, and if I do my job well and prepare the conditions, I may be able to make a huge investment!

After all, if such a big world richest man comes over, let alone peeling off a layer of skin, even if he just plucks a few hairs, it would be a huge investment that is enough to make people swallow their saliva!

Mr. Xu is well-known throughout the country for his generosity. Big projects and large investments basically cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Some ordinary projects also cost tens of billions of dollars. Even small and insignificant projects cost hundreds of millions of dollars!

If we are lucky enough to get a big project, it will really benefit countless people... Huge investment means huge employment and tax revenue, which is good no matter how you look at it!
Looking at places like Ancheng and Tongcheng, everyone is drooling...

These places were not very good before, they were just ordinary, but since they joined hands with Zhiyun Group, one of them is now the country's top semiconductor R&D and production base, with a world-class semiconductor manufacturing company: Zhiyun Microelectronics, the country's largest semiconductor R&D center.

Another core production base of Weiku Industrial, a world-class electronic product OEM company, employs hundreds of thousands of employees locally.

I'm drooling just thinking about it...

This is also the reason why local people pay more attention to Xu Shenxue when he goes to other places for inspection, especially second- and third-tier cities like Dongcheng, which often try to seize the opportunity and get a few investment projects.

After Xu Shenxue's special plane arrived in Dongcheng, the motorcade left the airport and went directly to Zhiyun's local branch building for inspection.

The huge convoy moved forward, with a police car leading the way, followed by a row of sea blue SLC luxury sedans and sea blue SEV large SUVs in a black convoy.

Just by looking at the convoy, passers-by would know that some important person must be coming.

When Xu Shenxue arrived at the local branch building, he looked up and saw a huge white cloud logo on the building's outer wall. This is the logo of Zhiyun Group, and above the logo are two large characters "Zhiyun". The local Zhiyun Building is also a landmark building. After all, Dongcheng is only a third-tier city and there are no large and famous companies in the area.

At the same time, what kind of company is Zhiyun? It is a world-class multinational company. Even if it is just an ordinary branch in the local area, responsible for the less prominent smart home business of the group, it still owns an office building of nearly 40 floors in the local area, namely the Zhiyun Building, with thousands of employees.

In addition to the R&D center and administrative building in the Zhiyun Building of the CDB Center, there is also a production base of the cooperative enterprise Weiku Industrial in the suburban industrial park, which has tens of thousands of employees.

So even though it is just an inconspicuous branch, this branch is also considered a leading high-tech enterprise in the local area...

Led by the management of the local branch, Xu Shenxue quickly entered the building. After a simple and formal inspection of other routine departments, Xu Shenxue came to the core R&D department of the local branch.

Here, Xu Shenxue saw some smart homes that are in the research and development stage, including the next generation of smart TVs, smart air conditioners, refrigerators and other common home appliances.

"Most of our smart home projects are developed together with our partners. We are responsible for the smart control part and software, while they are responsible for the development of the hardware part of traditional home appliances and are also responsible for OEM!"

"After years of development, the revenue of our smart home business has gradually increased. Our main product, smart TVs, has gone through multiple generations and sales have gradually increased. Last year, the shipment volume reached 600,000 units, and in the first half of this year, the shipment volume reached 400,000 units. This year, we are expected to achieve annual sales of one million units!"

"In the domestic high-end market, our products have a relatively large leading position, accounting for 75 percent of the market share in the high-end market with a price of more than 20,000 yuan."

“There is a lot of competition in overseas markets, but we can also occupy a certain market share in the high-end market.”

Zhiyun's various smart home products, including TVs, have always been targeting the high-end market. Among its TV products, entry-level products alone cost more than 10,000 yuan, while mainstream products are over 20,000 yuan, and some high-end models are even over 30,000 yuan.

In addition, Zhiyun’s smart home products, like its smart terminal products, are not only aimed at the domestic market, but more at the overseas market.

Of course, the content in smart TVs is obtained by cooperating with local content providers based on the situation in each country.

So even if they are both Zhiyun TVs, the operating system inside is the same, but the film and television content provided in different markets is also different... This mainly depends on the relevant legal situation in each country.

Xu Shenxue looked at the extra-large screen TV in front of him and carefully looked at the actual color picture after turning it on. He felt it was quite good. The screen display effect was very good, at least worth the price of twenty or thirty thousand.

At the same time, I also experienced voice control, mobile phone APP control, Bluetooth connection and so on.

This smart terminal has a built-in voice assistant Xiaoyun, which can be used even when used alone. You can directly use voice commands to turn on the TV, play selected content, and perform other operations.

If it is connected to a home host, the effect will be smoother.

All types of smart home terminals of Zhiyun Group can be connected to the home host via wired or Bluetooth methods. The home host has built-in better-performing computing chips and more powerful AI algorithms, which can better carry out human-computer interaction and control various smart terminals in the house.

Can accurately identify some fuzzy instructions.

For example, if someone comes home and says that they feel a little hot and asks the home host to turn on the air conditioner, the AI ​​of the home host will accurately identify it, then control the air conditioner to start cooling and set the temperature to a more suitable range. If it is a central air conditioner, it can also turn on cooling in a certain room or living room based on the range of the person captured by the camera.

At the same time, if the floor is dirty, the sweeper can be remotely controlled to clean it without affecting the owner's activities.

The AI ​​of the entire smart home is very smart, far surpassing the so-called voice assistants of other manufacturers on the market.

This is also an important scenario for Zhiyun Group's commercial application in the field of AI.

However, the entire smart home system is very expensive and ordinary families cannot afford it... The home host costs tens of thousands, the sweeper costs tens of thousands, the TV costs tens of thousands, and other types of electrical appliances also cost tens of thousands. In addition, some furniture or other equipment also needs to install special smart control modules. For example, to control curtains, lamps, windows, doors and other devices, you have to install special control modules.

In general, Zhiyun Group's smart home system is still far from ordinary families. If you want to have a good experience, you often need to customize the whole house during decoration, which is very expensive. Only those who are not short of money and like to try high-tech will go for Zhiyun's full set of smart home customization.

For ordinary families, basically what can be connected to smart home is often buying a smart TV and then using the built-in voice assistant in it. It can only be said that something is better than nothing!
Xu Shenxue's attitude towards the smart home business in the group is to focus on selling hardware products first, and as for the customization of smart home for the whole house, he will take his time.

As for revenue, that’s not too disappointing… For the best-selling smart TVs, assuming a good sales growth this year, the annual revenue is expected to be only about 2 to 3 billion US dollars.

For the huge Zhiyun Group, which has an annual revenue of more than 300 billion US dollars and is aiming for a revenue of 400 billion US dollars this year, this revenue is just a fraction of a fraction.

Even the entire smart home business line only generates revenue of 700 to 800 million US dollars a year, and the cost is high and the profit is low. The net profit is estimated to be only about 1 billion US dollars, which is not as much as Zhiyun Group makes from selling Bluetooth headsets...

Zhiyun's Bluetooth headset business can now generate more than 6 billion US dollars in revenue a year, but its gross profit margin is high, and its net profit is more than 30 US dollars.

Otherwise, why is the Bluetooth headset business a direct business of Zhiyun Group? It is because this thing may seem insignificant, but the profit is very high.

Of course... although Bluetooth headsets make a lot of money, their contribution to the industry chain is not that great.

Although smart homes are not very profitable, they are large products after all. They contain a large number of components and involve the very important semiconductor industry, and then involve a large number of cooperative suppliers... Many people make a living from this.

It is also the main business of Zhiyun Group to digest various types of outdated semiconductor products in inventory.

Some S series chips from a few years ago are no longer used in mobile phones, but they are still very good in various smart terminals. For example, the S504 chip based on the 503-nanometer process, which is the baseband-free version of the S mobile phone SOC, is still maintained in small-scale production and is used to supply various smart home products.

It still brings revenue to Zhiyun Semiconductor and some foundry orders to Zhiyun Microelectronics.

So Xu Shenxue still did the smart home business, even though it didn't make much money.

After looking at some new products developed for smart homes, Xu Shenxue also watched a conference.

At the end of the day, I attended a local technology conference that evening. However, as a participant, I sat in the front row and listened to some speeches. Then I said a few simple words to express my optimism about the future prospects of the smart home field.

A small-scale exchange was also held afterwards.

After some exchanges, Xu Shenxue said that the company will further expand its investment in the field of smart home in the future, and if nothing unexpected happens, this part of the investment will most likely be made in Dongcheng.

After all, Dongcheng is the main layout city for Zhiyun Group's smart home business line. Unless there are any major accidents, it will continue to be here, including expanding the R&D center, and then attracting supply chain manufacturers to set up a few more production bases.

After finishing the inspection in Dongcheng, Xu Shenxue left on a special plane, but did not return to Shenzhen. Instead, he went to Beijing in a very low-key manner. In addition to some routine inspections, he also secretly visited the laboratories of several non-public project teams under Zhiyun Group for inspections.

This includes the laboratory where the relatively important advanced intelligent unmanned aerial vehicle combat system project team is located.

In this secret research institute, Xu Shenxue heard some simple reports from the project leader: "Now our algorithm framework is basically ready, and we are currently conducting various trainings. However, collecting training data is also more troublesome. After all, we need to make some modifications to the existing equipment and conduct various extreme flights before we can collect enough data."

“So it will take some time to collect data, and AI training is also ongoing.”

"But the framework is fine. What comes next is the hard work of continuously collecting data and conducting training."

"The algorithm version of the first-generation AI drone we have trained has performed extremely well in simulation experiments and has greatly exceeded the control limit of human pilots. Especially in complex environments, with a large number of devices connected to the Internet and situational awareness greatly improved, our first-generation algorithm model can make highly optimized high-frequency change decisions based on a large amount of situational awareness data, which is something that current human pilots cannot do!"

“Even in theory, our first generation of AI is already practical on aircraft. Our partners have already modified some aircraft with this system for testing, and the results are excellent!”

"But for the sake of being conservative, we and our partners believe that we should continue training and wait for the more perfect second-generation algorithm model, or even the third-generation algorithm model to come out before putting it into practical use!"

"The progress of subsequent algorithm model training depends on the computing power provided by the group's AI training array."

"At the same time, the training of this algorithm will not stop in theory. We will continue to collect more training data, continue to improve and perfect the algorithm framework, and then continue training to complete the continuous iteration of the algorithm."

"Of course, the training cost will get higher and higher. The specific training level depends on how much funding the partner provides!"

Training AI is very expensive, especially this kind of large-scale, highly professional AI, which is much more expensive than training civilian AI that focuses on human-computer interaction.

Behind the AI ​​of this advanced intelligent unmanned combat system is an extremely large secret AI training array located in the southwest region... Not to mention anything else, the electricity bill alone is not a small amount, not to mention the expensive AI series chips.

The price of an AI5500 chip based on -nanometer technology within the group is yuan, and an array requires tens of thousands of AI chips. Add in other investments, and the total investment is billions...

More importantly, this large-scale AI training array, which costs billions of dollars, will become obsolete in just a few years...

Because the process technology is constantly evolving, the current 14-nanometer AI chip is top-notch, but next year the 10-nanometer process will be available, and the year after that the 7-nanometer process will be available!

The more advanced the process used to produce the AI ​​chip, the more powerful its performance will be.

In order to obtain more computing power, a large number of new-generation AI chips must be purchased every year to build more advanced AI training arrays... This process is extremely costly.

Therefore, the cost of contemporary AI is very high... Only Zhiyun Group has the ability to engage in this kind of industry where billions of dollars are spent but there is little splash.

As for other companies, only some top domestic and foreign high-tech companies will do this, but the scale cannot be as big as Zhiyun Group.

For ordinary enterprises, don’t count on AI for the time being. It’s better to wait until the computing power cost is greatly reduced and the algorithm is open source…

"In addition to the need for algorithms to continue to be trained using AI training arrays, better onboard computing chips are also needed."

"After all, no matter how good our AI model is, it still needs the computing power provided by the onboard chip."

"The chip we are using for testing is the EYQ3 chip based on the 80-nanometer process, with a single chip computing power of TOPS."

"This chip is barely adequate for civilian use, but it is not enough for our project!"

"We have calculated in detail that in order to meet the design requirements, the bottom line is that the EYQ120 chip with a computing power of 4TOPS and equivalent to a -nanometer process is the best."

"The bottom line is that it can be used barely. We must strictly control some large data volumes, especially operations with instantaneous data volumes. Otherwise, the system may experience minor lags."

"It's mainly because our advanced intelligent drone combat system collects too much data and needs to process it instantly..."

"After all, what we are developing is not a remote-controlled aircraft, but an AI drone with the ability to perform tasks autonomously, which requires a huge amount of computing power!"

Xu Shenxue naturally knew the difficulty of this kind of drone system.

Even with algorithm support, computing power is still a huge challenge!

If drones are to perform well, they must collect enough data. Once there is a lot of data, better computing chips are needed to process the data.

For example, the optoelectronic data fed back by the distributed optoelectronic system on a drone... the human pilot only needs to take a look at the image data fed back by the optoelectronic system on the display to get the result and then make a decision quickly.

However, if AI is used for processing, then ultra-high-performance computing chips will be needed to process large amounts of data, and the computing power required will be very high.

The distributed optoelectronic system is just a situational awareness system of the drone itself...it is just one of them. There are also various radars, infrared sensors and other airborne equipment. In addition, it needs to be connected to the Internet to obtain a large amount of data from other equipment.

Massive amounts of data continue to pour in, and the system needs to process the data in a very short time.

It’s impossible that the system has to process more than ten seconds of data even when the missiles are coming, right?
The daylilies are completely cold!

Therefore, the data processing speed of the entire system must be fast enough, and it can even be said that the faster the better.

This also leads to an extremely high demand for onboard computing power.

Therefore, the project team said that the EYQ4 chip, which is still under design, is not good enough, and it would be best to have a chip with an equivalent -nanometer process... Of course, if there is also a -nanometer or even -nanometer AI computing chip, it would be even better...

Anyway, the more computing power the better, and there is no upper limit to demand.

The more computing power there is, the more data the onboard AI can process, and the faster it can process it, and the more optimized the choices it makes.

For this type of AI drone, computing power is combat power when the algorithm level is the same.

The computing power is not enough, what’s the point of making an AI drone... Just play with the remote-controlled planes with high latency.

This is why many AI projects require more advanced computing chips.

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The current situation is that a large number of projects are being tested using the previous 2-nanometer EYQ3 chip and the 4-nanometer EYQ chip that was just launched this year. In the future, the -nanometer EYQ chip will be used for testing.

The reason why we directly use the EYQ series chips used in Hailan Automobile is mainly to save costs. After all, we are now in the training and development stage, and there is no need to develop a special computing chip. We can just use the ready-made EYQ series chips.

However, when it reaches the seven-nanometer process stage, airborne computing chips will be specially designed for "advanced intelligent drone combat systems."

By then, the various performance indicators of this chip will be very high. Not only will it have high computing power, but it will also have special packaging that meets various special needs such as anti-electronic interference, resistance to high and low temperatures, etc.

In order to prevent advanced computing chips from making mistakes in complex electromagnetic environments, designers not only consider radiation resistance when packaging the chips.

In fact, the place where the chip is installed in the drone will also be specially designed to be resistant to radiation, high temperature or low temperature, in order to protect the "brain" of the AI ​​drone.

Therefore, there is no need to worry that the AI ​​drone equipped with advanced process chips will fall down after being exposed to strong electromagnetic radiation. This is impossible.

What ordinary people can think of, professional designers have already considered long ago.

Therefore, issues such as packaging and installation of radiation resistance are not big problems...the main problem is the process issues in the chip manufacturing process.

The key is whether we can produce a chip equivalent to the seven-nanometer process.

As long as they can develop a computing chip equivalent to a seven-nanometer process, engineers have a hundred ways to use it in fighter jets, spacecraft and other types of equipment.

Therefore, now it is not just smart terminals such as mobile phones that are waiting for the equivalent of seven-nanometer technology, but also a large number of AI projects and even some core projects are waiting for the equivalent of seven-nanometer technology from Zhiyun Microelectronics.

Otherwise, it would be impossible for Xiannvshan Holdings to receive so much support for its lithography machines and other supporting equipment.

Because Xiannvshan Holdings' advanced lithography machines and other core equipment are directly related to the domestic equivalent of seven-nanometer technology, and will further affect the progress of strategic-level projects such as the "Advanced Intelligent UAV Combat System."

A few years ago, many people believed that in the strategic field, 90 nanometers or 65 nanometers would be enough, and that advanced technology was used in the civilian field and had nothing to do with the strategic field.

However, after the advent of the AI ​​era, people suddenly discovered that many key areas have become a competition of computing power, such as the most basic application of AI: image recognition.

AI image recognition algorithms can accurately find and mark suspected targets in massive amounts of complex image information, eliminating the need to manually check with the naked eye over and over again as in the past, which not only wastes time but can also sometimes lead to omissions.

How powerful is AI's image recognition algorithm? The algorithm installed on Hailan cars alone, with the support of the EYQ2 chip, can process thousands of images per second... much more efficient than manual work.

How did the AI ​​image recognition algorithm come about? It was trained using an AI training array.

How is the AI ​​image recognition algorithm used? It is run using high-performance computing chips!
Without high-performance AI chips and computing power chips, this kind of AI image recognition cannot be performed.

Under such circumstances, the demand for chips in many key areas has become that 14 nanometers is not enough, 10 nanometers is still a little short, and 7 nanometers is barely enough.

If there are five nanometers or three nanometers, that would be even better... In short, the more advanced the chip, the better!
The days when 90 nanometers or 65 nanometers were enough are gone forever.

(End of this chapter)