Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 395: X14's shock and commercial use

Xu Shenxue was on the stage, wearing his usual black casual trousers and a long-sleeved white shirt, with his sleeves rolled up, revealing his unchanging black leather strap watch.

This is the uniform Xu Shenxue wears at every press conference, and it has not changed over the years.

It is also the typical image used by many news media when reporting on Xu Shenxue.

The person is still the same person, the clothes are still the same, but the products introduced are different every year.

Today, Xu Shenxue has brought people brand new robots, including entry-level general-purpose robots priced as low as RMB 150,000, general-purpose robots with higher configurations, and quadruped general-purpose robots.

It has also brought people a brand new intelligent drone.

When the two intelligent drones flew from outside the venue to the stage in the center of the open-air venue, many audiences were shocked.

Drones are not unfamiliar. Xiaojiang Technology launched drones to the market many years ago, focusing on aerial photography, and then gradually extended to pesticide spraying, small cargo transportation and other fields.

At the same time, drones frequently appear in many local conflicts.

However, even so, drones are still relatively unfamiliar to ordinary people!
Personal consumer drones are a very niche product. Although they are not expensive...an entry-level aerial photography drone costs only a few thousand yuan, which is not as expensive as the high-end models of the S series mobile phones.

However, there are still not many people who buy it. Only some people who are specialized in the industry, or enthusiasts of drones, model airplanes, etc. will buy it.

Drones that are slightly larger and cost tens of thousands or even more yuan can be equipped with optional ultra-high magnification lenses or infrared cameras. Some optional models even have advanced functions such as automatic tracking and identification of moving targets, such as vehicles and pedestrians.

These are all professional drones, mainly used in aerial photography, monitoring, patrolling and other fields. There are not many individuals who buy them. They are all purchased by professional aerial photography companies or public security, transportation and other institutions!

The largest customers of this type of professional high-end surveillance patrol drone are actually the public security and traffic management departments of various countries... Police in many places in the United States particularly like this type of drone.

Going further up the list, there are drones for agricultural or transportation purposes, with a load capacity of tens of kilograms. They can be used to spray pesticides and transport small cargoes, and their prices range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands.

Xiaojiang Technology actually has a wide variety of remote-controlled drones, ranging from personal consumer-grade aerial photography drones to professional aerial photography drones, monitoring and patrol drones, and then agricultural and transport drones, with sizes ranging from tens of centimeters in diameter to one or two meters.

The above-mentioned drones are still niche products... Ordinary people will not buy these drones unless they have something important to do.

At the same time, all of the above drones are remote-controlled drones, and their flight distance is limited.

But today, Xu Shenxue launched an extra-large drone to people... Strictly speaking, this exceeds people's usual understanding of traditional drones.

After all, the X14 smart drone is quite large, with a diameter of several meters when unfolded, which gives people a different feeling.

Strictly speaking, this is a vertical take-off and landing electric low-altitude aircraft... In terms of payload, it is directly comparable to a light helicopter and has already departed from the category of traditional small drones.

Xu Shenxue started by introducing the key parameters of the X14 intelligent drone to people, which shocked them. Then he slowly said, "I said a long time ago that the future transportation model will develop towards intelligence!"

"It will include unmanned vehicles, unmanned vertical take-off and landing aircraft... It will be highly intelligent, and the entire system will operate in an orderly manner under the control of super AI. There will be no traffic jams or collisions between vehicles!"

“People can take unmanned vehicles to any location on the ground, and they can also take low-altitude drones from their own balconies or rooftops to anywhere they want to go!”

"The same is true in the freight sector. A large number of unmanned trucks of various types and low-altitude cargo drones will transport large amounts of goods to their destinations quickly and at low cost."

"Whether it is carrying people or cargo, no human intervention is required throughout the entire process, which can avoid various accidents caused by human operating errors to the greatest extent and ensure people's travel safety."

"To achieve this, I developed driverless vehicles. The new generation of advanced intelligent assisted driving system in Hailan Automobile is, in a sense, capable of replacing human drivers and working in complex urban traffic environments."

"But having the Hailan car is not enough. The whole system is still missing an important piece of the puzzle, which is a low-altitude drone that can be driven intelligently!"

"And the X14 intelligent drone takes on this positioning!"

"The X14 intelligent drone, carefully built by Xiaojiang Technology, represents the most advanced technology currently available to mankind, and has advanced technology that other manufacturers cannot catch up with in five or even ten years!"

"It can achieve purely autonomous intelligent flight. People only need to set a destination for it and give it some vague instructions, and it will be able to take off, plan a path, and land autonomously, without any intervention from the driver or remote control personnel!"

"Of course, in order to ensure further safety, our manned models still have a manual driving mode, but the threshold for use is extremely low, and driving it is even simpler than driving a car."

"At the same time, the manual driving mode has absolute priority."

"However, this is only a necessary safety precaution mode. In fact, in many of our tests, under the macro control of the flight control AI of the command center, the flight control of the onboard AI is more reliable and more accurate than that of human pilots. Even in the case of losing multiple rotor power, our onboard AI can still quickly control the flight safety of the X14 intelligent drone and choose to return home, continue flying, or make an emergency landing according to the situation!"

"In order to achieve efficient autonomous flight, Xiaojiang Technology and Zhiyun Group have cooperated to jointly develop the VT 07 flight artificial intelligence, which runs on the exclusive EYQ computing platform and has sufficient computing resources for data processing and decision-making."

"VT07 flight AI is the smartest and calmest pilot in the world."

"At the same time, we also provide additional ground flight control centers and deploy a super flight control artificial intelligence OT system. The system uses a server array composed of top-level APO4500 computing power cards. A single server can support the flight control of more than 14 X14 smart drones, and the number of X smart drones that can be controlled can be further increased by increasing the computing power of the server."

“The OT system can process massive amounts of external data sensor data, communication data, and various data fed back by the X14 intelligent drones. After aggregating a large amount of data, it can plan the overall flight plan and ensure the overall coordination of the X14 fleet’s operations!”

"OT Super Flight AI system can connect to X14 intelligent drones through regular operator mobile Internet, or through Zhiyun Satellite's satellite Internet. In addition, it can also use large ground communication towers for communication. A variety of different communication modules are enough to meet all communication needs!"

'The OT super flight system will be launched together with the X14 smart drone, and will be available for purchase and use by corporate customers in need. ”

"If you are an individual user, you don't need this kind of professional large-scale ground flight control center. If you need ground remote control, we have additional personal portable flight controllers to achieve one-to-one remote control."

"Through the combination of the VT onboard artificial intelligence system and the OT ground-based super flight system, our X14 can fly autonomously without the need for a human pilot!"

“And flying is safer and more efficient!”

"Because it can also eliminate any human errors... In our previous more than 10,000 flight tests, it has never made a mistake, not even once, not even the slightest mistake... To be precise, every time it flies, it achieves the most perfect posture that a human pilot can achieve, so that even the most experienced pilots can't find any faults!"

This is actually a bit exaggerated, because most of these 10,000 flight tests were small-scale tests in laboratories and self-test sites. They are not just airborne AI, but also include the coordination of ground OT systems. More importantly... there are a large number of various sensors throughout the test site!
With the support of data from a large number of sensors, it is difficult for AI flying to make mistakes!

However, in actual use environments, it is actually difficult to have a large number of sensors around, unless there is a dedicated take-off and landing site. Otherwise, there will be no external sensors along the way during a normal flight, and we can only rely on onboard sensors!

This is also the point that Xu Shenxue mentioned now: "In order to provide sufficient sensor data for the airborne AI, we have deployed a total of six laser radars on the X14 intelligent drone, located at the bottom, top, front, back, left and right of the fuselage."

"The front main laser radar BKT96 has a line count of 2680. Its performance is so advanced that it is difficult to describe it with many professional terms, because it has far surpassed many contemporary peers, and there is even a lack of comparison objects."

"But my engineers told me that it can even clearly see tiny potholes on the ground a thousand meters away. This is the top and most advanced lidar on Earth today."

"The X14 has a total of six high-performance lidars that can provide the onboard AI with real-time 3D spatial data in all spaces, up and down, front and back, left and right."

“It sees much more clearly and accurately than humans!”

"The combination of the GPS positioning system, the Beidou satellite's precise positioning system, and the Zhiyun satellite's ultra-high precision positioning module will provide the X14 intelligent drone with ultra-high precision positioning capabilities... no matter where it is on the planet!"

"There are also many sensors such as ultrasonic radar, ultra-high-definition camera, infrared sensor, low-light sensor, active phased array radar, etc."

"This X14 intelligent drone is the most technologically advanced aircraft with the most integrated sensors in human history!"

“The data collected by the above-mentioned airborne sensors will be processed in real time by the airborne AI and used as the basis for decision-making!”

“When a large number of top sensors, computing chips, airborne AI, and ground control AI are combined together!”

"We have achieved pure artificial intelligence flight, which has never been done before!"

Xu Shenxue started by bragging about artificial intelligence...but he didn't mention other things like flight performance for the time being.

This is not only because artificial intelligence is a hot topic and can reflect its advanced nature, but also because of the unique technical advantages, cost advantages,

In the past, simple remote-controlled drones, even those with a load capacity of several hundred kilograms, could actually be made... The concepts of flying cars and large low-altitude drones were not first proposed by Xu Shenxue. Others had proposed them and been working on them a long time ago.

But it was just average, occasionally appearing in the news and then disappearing.

Because traditional remote-controlled drones or manned small aircraft face a lot of problems... Remote-controlled drones are difficult to fly long distances, and manned flying cars and the like... Then we need to introduce the concept of air traffic control. Is this a traditional aircraft or a drone?
Finally, there are issues of safety and cost!
The above-mentioned problems have led to the fact that traditional remote-controlled drones and manned small aircraft have difficulty causing a large-scale sensation, let alone creating any market waves and promoting the development of the low-altitude economy.

To put it bluntly, this stuff is OK... but there are a ton of problems with it.

This is also the reason why Xiaojiang Technology skipped all these messy things and started with artificial intelligence low-altitude drones.

After all, purely artificial intelligence low-altitude aircraft do not require pilots, the threshold for use is greatly reduced, and they can also take off and land vertically.

Although it is several meters in size when expanded, it is not very large overall and can take off and land on any open space...even easier than a light helicopter.

And if there is no need for a pilot or a driving module, as a cargo model, its load capacity can be entirely used to transport cargo...which means a greater cargo transportation volume.

This is the unique advantage brought by artificial intelligence technology!
What does this advantage mean?
Low threshold, low cost!
Pilots are so expensive. Now we don’t need pilots, which saves a lot of money.

The combined weight of the pilot and the driving module is quite large. Now that the pilot is no longer needed, this weight can be freed up, and the transport weight is doubled.

For low-altitude multi-rotor drones, which originally have a load capacity of only a few hundred kilograms, this means a significant reduction in transportation costs.

Simply having advanced technology may not necessarily open up the market for something, but if you can make related companies see the benefits, such as cost savings, then the market will be easier to do business in.

If vertical take-off and low-altitude multi-rotor drones, or other types of low-altitude aircraft, want to truly open up the market and play the low-altitude economy, the overall economic benefits must be taken into consideration.

This is also an important reason why Xiaojiang Technology must adopt artificial intelligence technology... Without artificial intelligence, low-altitude economics will be difficult to operate... There will be a lot of problems involved.

At this time, Xu Shenxue paused for a while on the stage and began to further introduce other aspects of the X14 intelligent drone, mainly the hardware.

"The X14 intelligent drone uses our self-developed high-efficiency motors, and is paired with our carefully developed special rotors. It not only provides ample power, but more importantly, it is very energy-efficient, further extending the drone's endurance." "And the X14 intelligent drone has eight such high-efficiency motors, with two motors deployed on each rotor on the four cantilevers!"

"The power generated by the eight propellers can not only support the X4's maximum load of kilograms, but also leave a surplus to deal with unexpected situations!"

"If an accident occurs and one or even two of the eight propellers fail, our efficient flight control system can still maintain the stability of the drone and even continue the mission by distributing power to the other propellers!"

"Even if three propellers fail, the system can still activate emergency mode and land at the nearest location."

“Finally, we also placed a large backup parachute on top of the aircraft…so, even if all power fails, our aircraft can still eject an emergency parachute and ensure the safe landing of the drone!”

"In terms of safety, we have made a lot of targeted designs and measures to ensure that every X14 is safe."

"And it is our new generation of energy system that supports the eight large propellers and provides sufficient power for the drone!"

"The energy system of our new generation of drones uses the most advanced semi-solid-state battery with an energy density of 350 watt-hours per kilogram. It is lighter and smaller in size. It also has a super fast charging system. It can restore 80% of its power in 15 minutes of charging. This allows our drones to have the ability to fly continuously in a short period of time!"

"It must be said here that the super-fast charging system on our X14 smart drone adopts the domestic unified standard super-fast charging system, so... you can go to any public charging station in the country to charge your X14 smart drone!"

"In addition, we will also provide super charging pile procurement and installation services for corporate customers or qualified individual customers to support the fast charging flight of the X14 smart drone!"

"At the same time, the X14's energy system also supports the conventional charging mode of the regular civilian power grid. The included portable charger can be directly connected to the home power grid to charge the X14!"

"Finally, in order to solve the problem of some customers being unable to charge quickly during field operations, our battery packs can be directly disassembled and replaced. No professional technicians are required. Ordinary people can follow the operating instructions to remove the battery and replace it with a new one within five minutes. It is very convenient!"

"So we also provide separate X14 smart drone dedicated batteries for corporate or individual customers to purchase and use."

"We have developed a complete set of technical solutions around the X14 intelligent drone, from the ground control center to the drone, batteries, charging stations, etc., to completely solve all worries!"

Xu Shenxue spoke eloquently on the stage about the X14 intelligent drone. At first, everyone was shocked, then confused, and then numb.

Anyway, this is not the first or second time that Xu Shenxue has caused trouble, so people are no longer surprised after seeing it so many times.

But there is no doubt that according to Xu Shenxue's description, this thing is definitely a serious black technology, which is much better than the various drones on the market today.

This can also be seen from the name Xu Shenxue gave to the X14 project. Xu Shenxue did not call it a drone, but an intelligent drone.

Different names represent different meanings.

After explaining the situation, Xu Shenxue paused for a moment and then said, "Next, please watch the various flight demonstrations of our X14!"

"Everyone, please look, the No. 14 X has started to take off. This is a cargo drone with a maximum take-off weight of kilograms and a maximum load capacity of kilograms. It is equipped with a cargo hold where cargo can be placed directly. It can also be transported by hoisting!"

"We can even dismantle the cargo hold to further increase the load capacity to 350 kilograms, or increase the flight time and distance!"

Following Xu Shenxue's explanation, the No. 14 X intelligent drone took off smoothly and then arrived nearby to start lifting cargo.

"Please note that at this time, our staff only gave the X14 drone an order to lift the cargo through the ground control center, but did not perform any detailed operations. The onboard AI autonomously decided on the detailed location of the target and hovering in the air. At the same time, it was able to communicate directly with the ground operators through a portable communication terminal."

At this time, the voices of the ground personnel and X14 No. communicating with each other could be heard in the conference hall: "No. , move a little to the left. OK, here it is. Keep hovering!"

"Prepare to load the cargo."

At this time, the synthesized voice of X14 No. also came: "There are strong gusts of wind, the carrier may shake, ground personnel please pay attention to the cables!"

Xu Shenxue said at this time: "The onboard AI system of our X14 is a comprehensive AI system. In addition to the VT flight system, there is also a human-computer interaction system with very efficient text or voice interaction capabilities. It currently supports twelve mainstream languages ​​in the world, including Chinese, English, Spanish, Portuguese, etc., which is sufficient for interaction with most regions and populations around the world!"

"Users can give our X14 various flight instructions through fuzzy voice commands, and the onboard AI will accurately formulate a flight plan based on the fuzzy mission instructions!"

"All of the above functions do not require an internet connection, and rely entirely on the onboard EYQ computing platform to provide sufficient computing resources!"

"At the same time, we also provide the Yun AI interface for the X14 smart drone, which can provide users with a more comprehensive and in-depth human-computer interaction experience!"

The artificial intelligence on the X14 smart drone is actually a combination of several technologies, not just a single one.

There is one artificial intelligence flight system based on local computing power, and another one is the human-computer interaction system. These are the two locally deployed artificial intelligences.

Then there is Yun AI... but this requires a network to use... In fact, a super-large artificial intelligence model like Yun AI cannot be deployed on terminal devices... Zhiyun Group runs Yun AI not on one or two servers, but on an entire high-performance server array, using tens of thousands of AI5000 chips.

There is not just one kind of artificial intelligence, but various kinds. The Zhiyun Group Artificial Intelligence Research Institute has developed many kinds of artificial intelligence.

The fields involved range from national defense, industrial production, services, transportation, and then some earlier fields such as image recognition, human-computer interaction, voice, translation, and finally the generative AI that caused a sensation this year.

Even for Zhiyun Group, generative AI is actually a less eye-catching product.

The purpose of Zhiyun Group's artificial intelligence is not to create an APP and then let people communicate with artificial intelligence, or let artificial intelligence help people draw a picture, write a program, do math problems, etc.

Zhiyun Group's purpose in developing artificial intelligence has always been very clear, which is to develop artificial intelligence in industrial fields such as national defense and industry, as well as transportation, robots, drones, and unmanned vehicles... These things are the important products that will truly bring about a huge increase in productivity and change people's lifestyles.

As for pure generative AI or making AI imitate humans and doing something at the software application level, Zhiyun Group is actually not very interested...

Even the current super-large generative AI like Yun AI is not the goal of Zhiyun Group... Zhiyun Group's Yun AI project actually aims to develop a general-purpose, comprehensive, advanced artificial intelligence that can assist people in handling various daily tasks... the kind that actually solves problems, rather than just giving users text or voice feedback on the APP.

What Zhiyun Group wants is not just a generative AI APP, but a universal comprehensive AI that can be built into various smart terminals and even large equipment.

In essence, it is still to provide supporting hardware products.

For example, if Zhiyun Group develops a spacecraft in the future, AI will be needed to control the spacecraft... and Zhiyun Group has actually already carried out initial applications in the core module of Tiangong-3 and the commercial space station owned by Nanmen Aerospace which is currently under construction.

An artificial intelligence system has been deployed in the space station to assist astronauts in managing the space station, conducting more scientific experiments, repairing the space station, and commanding subsequent space operation drones... Of course, the technology is not yet perfect, but if it continues to be improved, we may be able to get a real spacecraft artificial intelligence one day.

Artificial intelligence like this is what Zhiyun Group is pursuing!
As for the current pure generative AI, for Zhiyun Group it is just a small toy to make money... release it for everyone to experience, to hype up the artificial intelligence market, and even release a few low-profile versions of open source AI.

What is the purpose?
The purpose is to encourage others to develop various AIs, and then sell AI chips behind them.

Although Zhiyun Group's software and Internet businesses have considerable revenue, it is a high-tech company that sells hardware from beginning to end, and it integrates R&D, production, and sales.

But we can't regard it as a simple Internet company.

Therefore, their purpose is very pure, which is to sell chips.

Although it is said that the Internet industry has a high valuation, high price-to-earnings ratio, and is very profitable, for a top high-tech company like Zhiyun Group, the Internet business alone cannot be compared with the huge profits from various smart terminals, robots, and semiconductor products.

To exaggerate a little, most Internet companies work hard but still cannot earn as much as Zhiyun Group, which sells charging/data cables or technology licenses, authentication chips and other business segments based on the T-USB interface.

The T-USB interface can bring Zhiyun Group approximately US$2 billion in revenue each year, and also supports hundreds of third-party manufacturers that have obtained T-USB technology licenses.

For Zhiyun Group, the revenue from the T-USB business is basically net profit... the technology licensing fees are easy to make, the certification chips are also extremely low-cost, and the gross profit margin is extremely high, and the data cables sold by the company also have a gross profit margin of more than 90%.

Otherwise, why do you think Zhiyun Group, such a large company, attaches great importance to the T-USB interface, and is willing to upgrade and encrypt it every year, and ignores the so-called industry standards of other industries or other countries, and insists on using its own T-USB interface.

The European Union has long said that it wants to develop a unified mobile phone interface and proposed to use the Type-C interface. Every time it is proposed, Zhiyun Group will find various reasons to oppose it.

At the same time, the fruit side also has a tacit understanding in this regard, standing on the same front as Zhiyun and singing different tunes.

why?
It's all money!

Two billion dollars a year is higher than the market value of a large number of listed companies. How can we give it up easily?

A small data cable can bring such huge profits to Zhiyun Group, not to mention many other hardware products.

The same is true in the field of artificial intelligence. Zhiyun Group does not sell artificial intelligence. What it sells is hardware products equipped with artificial intelligence or AI chips that support artificial intelligence... The difference here is very big.

The same is true for the X14 smart drone... The artificial intelligence technology it carries provides a better hardware product experience and reduces operating costs, ultimately laying the foundation for the X14 to be launched into the market.

The only problem is that although the X14 smart drone performed various well in its on-site demonstration, shocking a large group of media and technology enthusiasts, it silenced a group of colleagues who played low-altitude aircraft.

However, after the launch of the X14 smart drone, it remains unknown whether it can be widely launched in countries around the world.

Because this involves many legal issues... Is this thing considered an airplane, and therefore regulated as an aircraft, or is it considered a consumer drone, and therefore regulated as a small personal consumer drone? Or is it considered a means of transportation, and therefore regulated as a ground transportation agency?
Then, the X14 drone claims to have no pilot, but who is responsible if an accident occurs? The company that operates the aircraft, or the passengers, or Xiaojiang Technology, which has the onboard AI? Or Zhiyun Group, which provides the underlying AI technology support?

There are so many legal issues involved here...especially since the laws and management agencies in different countries are different, so if you want to sell it globally, you will have to face many complex legal issues around the world.

Of course, within its own territory, the X14 smart drone can still obtain relevant permits and conduct experimental commercial applications.

However, the limitations are also very great. It only obtained a temporary license, allowing X14 to carry out commercial applications in specific areas and on specific routes... To put it bluntly, it is to specially approve a few exclusive routes for X14 to use, to see how effective it is.

But what to do next still needs further study!

This is the case in China, and there are even more problems encountered in many foreign countries... At least it cannot be listed in the United States... Because the other party insists that Xiaojiang Technology provide the underlying flight artificial intelligence code so that they can "determine the safety."

It's like a lunatic, so Xiaojiang Technology simply stopped its plan to launch X14 in the United States.

However, it is said that many American institutions and even the military are very interested in this thing and are ready to rent a batch through Commissioner Smith!

(End of this chapter)