Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 449: The Popular Zhiyun Robot
At the winter press conference of Zhiyun Group, Xu Shenxue launched the new third-generation intelligent robots Yun Robot B3 and A3. He also launched a brand new innovative product, AI glasses, which had never appeared on the market before: Yun AIG.

The launch of these two categories of products has aroused a lot of external discussion.

First of all, in the industry, there has not been much discussion about intelligent robots. After all, no matter how much you talk about it, it is useless. You can’t copy it, and you can only watch Zhiyun Group eat the whole thing.

Even Google, Apple and some of the world's top high-tech companies are helpless when it comes to intelligent robots and simply cannot produce them... This is also the reason why the intelligent robots under Zhiyun Group can be exported to the United States recently.

By the way, the intelligent robots under Zhiyun Group are not classified as smart terminal products by the United States, but are classified as industrial equipment products. This is mainly to circumvent the restrictions of the United States prohibiting Zhiyun Group from selling smart terminal products to the US market.

Of course, everyone knows that this is an attempt to cover up one's own mistakes, but the Americans just turn a blind eye... There is no competition anyway, and Xu Shenxue has reached a certain degree of reconciliation and cooperation with several American consortiums in the past two years, so they just have to accept it.

Of course, some superficial work still needs to be done. For example, the generative AI voice and translation interfaces called by intelligent robots sold to the United States require the use of artificial intelligence model services provided by American companies... but in fact, they are the Yun AI interfaces directly provided by American artificial intelligence companies.

In addition, it is not a direct sales model. Zhiyun's products still cannot be sold directly to the consumer end, but American companies purchasing them on their own and using them for their own production or services are not restricted.

Therefore, American companies purchase Zhiyun robots from Zhiyun Group and then provide rental services to consumers. There are conventional rental models and also very strange ones: "one-time payment and permanent no-liability rental model."

To put it simply, money is exchanged for goods, and then a mutual exemption agreement is signed. Although the ownership of the items still nominally belongs to the lessor company, the lessee has all the rights, including the right to directly dismantle and scrap the items, sublease them, and the company does not need to repair them if they break down.

They are just playing with legal words and selling Zhiyun robots under this name.

This is bullshit!

In the U.S. market, Yun AI, a subsidiary of Zhiyun Group, cannot directly provide services to American consumers, but American companies can indeed develop corresponding apps and then call Yun AI's API interface to provide Yun AI services to American consumers.

After the intelligent robots under Zhiyun Group are classified as mechanical equipment, they can be put on the market for sale in the United States with a one-time payment and permanent no-liability rental model, thereby avoiding the US law banning Zhiyun Group's intelligent terminals. This is also nonsense.

It looks like taking off pants to fart, but that's what the law stipulates, so the reality is so ridiculous...

It's just an extra layer of skin. After some twists and turns, the price for American consumers to use Yun AI services or buy smart robots has become much more expensive.

In the United States, if you use a one-time payment and no-liability model to rent a Yun Robot B1 bipedal robot, which is also the main sales model of Zhiyun's robots, it will cost more than Chinese yuan, which is directly double the price in China.

very expensive!
Zhiyun Group’s robot business is too strong, and it is impossible to copy it, so the high-tech manufacturers in the industry can only watch the fun and feel envy and jealousy towards the newly launched B3 robot with more powerful performance.

But...as for AI glasses, they do think they can do it, and each of them has launched corresponding plans to develop their own AI glasses.

The level of attention paid to these two types of products is very different.

The above is the reaction from the industry, but it is slightly different in the media and consumer fields. People pay much more attention to Yun Robot B3 than AI glasses!
After all, although Xu Shenxue boasted about AI glasses at the press conference, such as full-color diffraction optical waveguide technology, AI chips, titanium alloy, high-density energy batteries, etc., they sound very awesome.

But after all, it is just a device that can translate, recognize objects, display or record text, and provide AI question and answer services... It sounds mysterious, but everyone has a mobile phone in their hands.

Some functions such as object recognition, text recording, question and answer, can't you just use Yun AI on your mobile phone? There's no need to wear glasses.

Translation is more practical, but for most people, there is actually no need for translation in daily life.

For example, in China, this translation function is very practical for people who travel abroad, work in foreign trade, and other people who need to come into contact with foreigners, but ordinary people cannot use it!
So, this thing is good, and it seems pretty good at first glance, but if you really ask them to spend 5,000 yuan to buy one, to be honest, most people will give up... There is no need, and most people don't have enough money to spend 5,000 yuan on a toy that has no practical use.

Therefore, the initial consumer groups of AI glasses are destined to be technology enthusiasts, people who have a need for translation, and some young people or technology practitioners who like to chase technological trends... Don't count on the ordinary people market for the time being.

However, Zhiyun Group did not expect how many of these products could be sold or how much revenue they could generate...For Zhiyun Group, AI glasses are just a product and a sample to promote artificial intelligence technology.

It also provides an idea for other manufacturers: artificial intelligence can be used not only in software services, and not only in some high-end products, but also in many common hardware products, such as home appliances and daily tools!

After the promotion, other manufacturers followed suit and made all kinds of messy AI hardware application products, so that Zhiyun Group can make money by relying on AI technology services and computing chips...

If you are developing artificial intelligence hardware application products, do you want to use Yun AI services? If you want to use them, please pay to purchase Yun AI's API interface.

If you deploy GTAI2 locally, you must have a GPU server. Please purchase APO4500, 4600 graphics cards or GT2 servers.

Then the general terminal computing power chip in the hardware is also indispensable. For lightweight products, please purchase the LC1 chip. For products with sufficient functions, please purchase the PX computing power platform.

People never expected to make money from AI glasses, but rather from a series of artificial intelligence services and the chips needed for artificial intelligence services.

Don’t forget that Zhiyun Group is not only a smart terminal manufacturer and artificial intelligence service provider, it is also a semiconductor manufacturer... and the revenue proportion brought by the semiconductor business is increasing, and it has become the core business that drives the revenue and profit growth of Zhiyun Group.

However, the revenue and profit of the AI ​​glasses business or other common AI terminals derived from it are nothing to Zhiyun Group, but for many other companies, they may bring them a momentum of take-off.

Zhiyun Group does not care about revenues of tens of billions or hundreds of billions of dollars, but if this level of revenue were given to other companies, they would all die of laughter!

Even sister companies Weiku Electronics Group and Yihai Technology Group began to organize artificial intelligence hardware projects and develop various artificial intelligence hardware applications after the press conference, not to mention other companies.

As for consumers, they don’t care about these things. They care more about things that can be seen and touched and can shock them.

Yun Robot B3 is such a product!
The entire machine weighs 56 kilograms and provides the most advanced semi-solid power battery pack with sufficient battery life. At the same time, it is equipped with high-performance fast charging technology to quickly replenish the power to meet the long-term continuous use of the robot.

The core computing power configuration uses the new generation of EYQ4 chips, ZY34 chips and ZY35 chips based on ten-nanometer process technology.

The EYQ4 chip, as a general-purpose terminal computing power chip, has a single-chip computing power of 120TOPS. This is currently the world's top general-purpose terminal computing power chip. In the future, it will also be installed in Hailan Automobile's new generation of models, low-altitude drones and other products.

The ZY34 chip is a sensor co-processing chip, a computing chip specially designed to process massive amounts of sensor data. Its ability to process sensor data has increased by percent over the previous generation. This chip was developed by Zhiyun Group specifically for data processing of medium and large terminals such as robots and aircraft based on artificial intelligence technology. There is no similar chip in the world.

The number of transistors in this chip even exceeds that of the EYQ4 chip.

The ZY35 chip is a motion co-processing chip that is specifically designed to provide computing power support for the motion module of artificial intelligence devices. Its performance has been improved by % compared to the previous generation, which can make the robot's motion module respond more quickly and more accurately. This chip also has no similar chips in the world, and there is no other chip of this type in the world...

Judging from the chip size, these two seemingly inconspicuous dedicated chips are actually larger than the EYQ4 chip, have more transistors, and provide higher computing power. However, they can only be used in special fields and cannot be used as general-purpose computing chips.

The combination of these three computing chips is enough to provide sufficient computing power for Yun Robot B3, thereby meeting the robot's various computing power requirements.

Hardware other than the battery system and computing power system has also been significantly upgraded.

Mainly various sensors, motors, cooling systems and other systems. The continuous technological progress in the past year has enabled Zhiyun Group to use better hardware equipment for robots in these fields. And as the cost of new technologies decreases, some technologies of the flagship model Yun Robot B2 released in the middle of the year can also be decentralized for use.

For example, the semi-solid-state battery of the battery system was previously only used on the B2 robot with a starting price of 3 yuan, but now it is directly provided to the Yun Robot B robot with a price of yuan.

A series of hardware upgrades have substantially improved the overall hardware performance of the B3 robot compared to the previous generation B1 robot.

For example, the battery life on a full charge has been increased by more than 50%, which is a very amazing improvement.

And technological progress is not limited to the hardware field, but also in the software field!
The Yun Robot B3 robot is equipped with a new generation of Yun RT2 algorithm core, which is the second-generation underlying artificial intelligence core algorithm developed by the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute of Zhiyun Group specifically for the new generation of commercial artificial intelligence hardware terminals.

The algorithm uses the latest technological achievement of the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute: 'dynamic fuzzy algorithm technology', which further imitates human dynamic fuzzy thinking ability. Although the technology is not yet mature, and the distance and expectation are still relatively limited, and cannot be compared with humans, it still significantly shortens the local instantaneous computing power of smart terminals, thereby improving the rapid response time of artificial intelligence terminals.

The technology of Yun RT2 core algorithm is so advanced that unless Zhiyun Group fully explains the technical principles and writes thousands of pages of technical principle instructions, even if it is open code, technical personnel from other companies will not be able to understand it... they will not be able to understand it at all.

Because they don’t even know the underlying theories, they can’t understand the code just by looking at the surface.

Not to mention outsiders, even in the AI ​​Research Institute within Zhiyun Group, there are only a few core researchers who can refer to internal technical data and can understand the core algorithm of Yun RT2... and these few people, every one of them, are pillars of the country who are on the assassination list of hostile forces.

Because this algorithm uses Professor Lin Antong’s latest mathematical theoretical achievements, it was developed under the guidance of Professor Lin Antong and even under his personal participation.

Professor Lin Andong's research in the field of mathematical theory is so profound that no one in the world can understand his research results. If people want to understand his research results, he needs to write a lot of additional instructions... otherwise no one can understand them.

At the same time, all his research results, including any notes and other materials, are classified as confidential information at the highest level. Not to mention being disclosed to the public, even internal personnel who want to refer to them have to undergo strict qualification review.

Well, this was not decided by Zhiyun Group itself, but by the higher-ups.

Of course, it’s not that there is no one who can discuss mathematics with Lin Anton. Professor Wang Binyao from the Fairy Mountain Holdings Materials Research Institute next door can still chat with him about mathematics...but not other people.

Even some other top mathematicians who are considered world-class would not even know what Lin Anton is saying if they discuss the mathematical problems he is studying with him... After listening to Lin Anton talk a lot, they would often fall into an extremely negative emotion: they would deeply doubt their own IQ!

So now many people have become smarter and never discuss math problems with Lin Anton in daily life, so as not to doubt their lives... Wang Binyao is the only exception.

However, Professor Wang Binyao is not a mathematics specialist. He works on materials. He studies mathematics only to create some mathematical tools for material research and development. Although his research is very in-depth, to be honest, Wang Binyao can only hear the general idea.

But he is smart. With a little hint, he can follow Lin Anton's thinking. He can't figure it out by himself, but there is no problem in chatting with him. In order to show his importance to these two top scientists, Xu Shenxue also specially established the W16 technical level, which was only awarded to these two people. The treatment in the fields of life logistics and security was directly based on Xu Shenxue's own treatment... As for the money, there is no need to say, it is a lot.

There was even no need for the two of them to spend any money of their own.

All their expenses, even the expenses Professor Wang spent on watching the girl group's performances every few days, were logistics support expenses...he didn't have to spend a penny.

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The Yun RT2 core algorithm, which adopts Professor Lin Andong’s latest research results, is the core technology of Zhiyun Group’s intelligent robots.

At the same time, after more than a year of continuous training, Zhiyun Group's robot-specific big data model has been significantly improved.

In the "data training factory" outsourced by Zhiyun Group, tens of thousands of data collection employees continue to work, providing the model with data on various human action patterns, as well as various data collected from hundreds of thousands of robots that have been sold before.

By utilizing these data, Zhiyun Group is increasingly improving its robot big data model, making the original functions more perfect, and is also continuously developing some new functions.

This allows people to see more powerful intelligent robots.

Especially at the press conference, when Xu Shenxue demonstrated the Yun Robot B3 robot, its movement patterns looked very smooth, and the operation of the robotic arm was extremely flexible and precise.

The whole thing looks similar to the robots seen in many science fiction movies.

In fact, since the launch of Zhiyun Group's robots, many crews creating science fiction films have all improved the performance settings of their robots. It's impossible that the robots in science fiction movies are not as powerful as the robots in reality...

People are very interested in this new generation of intelligent robots with high practicality. They drool at the sight of them. Unfortunately, most people are short of money and cannot afford it!
The Yun Robot B3 is very expensive, with the standard version costing 39.9 yuan and the high-end version costing 49.9 yuan. This price makes many people give up... they simply can't afford it!

The product is good, but I can’t afford to sell it. There’s nothing I can do. I can only look at other people’s user experiences online and feel envious.

Many middle- to high-income families in China can afford cars worth four or five hundred thousand yuan, such as the HaiLan SLMC and HaiLan MEV, if they grit their teeth. After all, a car is a necessity for a family.

But for a robot that costs four or five hundred thousand, I really can’t bear the price.

Since they cannot afford such an expensive robot, many middle- to high-income families, especially dual-income couples who have little time to do housework or take care of children or the elderly, will consider buying a C6 or C7 robot worth tens of thousands of yuan to do some housework and take care of children.

It can somewhat reduce my daily stress, so I don't have to come home exhausted every day and do a lot of housework.

In addition, Zhiyun robots are also large products. In order to promote sales, financial institutions under Zhiyun Group will also provide installment payment services. Just like buying a car, repayments can be made in installments over several years, and the interest rate is also very cheap.

In many cases, this led to a rather interesting situation. That is, after Zhiyun Group released the Yun Robot B3, the robot had not yet been officially put on the market, but its entry-level C series robots had received a lot of orders overnight.

After watching the press conference and related news, many people were really interested in the Zhiyun robot, but they couldn't afford it because it was too expensive, so they chose to buy the C series robot.

The cheapest C6 robot only costs RMB . If you pay in installments, the monthly expenses will not be very high. Most middle- to high-income families without other additional pressures can actually afford it.

There has been an increase in orders for C-series robots in China, and the same is true in many foreign countries, even developed countries are no exception.

The prices of Zhiyun's robots in these countries are generally higher than those in China. After all, there are tariffs and other taxes, finances, and sales costs. This leads to the higher price of the Yun Robot B3 robot in the country. The standard version ranges from more than to more than ... The most expensive one is in the United States.

This price is still relatively expensive even for ordinary families in these developed countries... Even if their income is high, their daily expenses are also high!

Therefore, when a new round of marketing advertisements for Zhiyun robots began to appear everywhere in online and offline media around the world, only a few people still chose to buy the B3 robot. Most people chose to settle for the second best and buy a C6 or C7 robot.

This means that the proportion of high-end B-series robots in the total sales of Zhiyun Group's robotics business has begun to decline rapidly...

And don’t think this is a bad thing, it’s not!

Although the previous B series robots accounted for a high proportion of sales, the total sales were actually small. Those who tried to buy and use robots in the early stages were families with money and technology enthusiasts. They naturally picked the good ones to sell, and price was not a very important factor.

Now, as Zhiyun Group has continued to promote the concept of marketing robots for more than a year, and some users who have previously purchased robots have shared their experiences, ordinary people in many areas have also been exposed to them and are considering buying them.

If you can’t afford the expensive ones, buy the cheap ones!

This is the core reason why the orders for the C series skyrocketed in a short period of time, and then the sales share of the C series increased rapidly...

It’s not that the sales of the B series have decreased, but that the sales of the C series have increased rapidly.

Zhiyun Group had anticipated this situation, but they had not expected it to be so drastic...

Zhiyun Group's marketing department considered that the launch of the Yun Robot B3 would boost sales of older robots, but did not expect the boost to be so great.

After all, when the C series robots were officially released for sale, there was also a lot of publicity, but the sales were just so-so. The monthly sales of the entire C series were not much higher than those of the B series... This made the people in Zhiyun Group's marketing department very helpless.

But now, with the release of the B3 robot, which further boosted market enthusiasm, the C series robots, which have been released and sold for half a year, have inexplicably become popular.

Three days after the press conference, Ji Chenghe reported to Xu Shenxue: "In recent days, our C series robots in global channels are out of stock!"

"In the past three days, we have received too many new orders for the C series, which is at least three times more than our estimated new orders for the C series. We expected the launch of the B3 robot to drive growth, but we did not expect the driving force to be so great!"

"In just these three days, the new orders for the C series have reached 160,000 units, of which 90,000 are from overseas and 60,000 are from domestic orders!"

"We are running low on inventory, and the supply chain can't supply us in a short time, so we can only let customers queue up to get the goods!"

Ji Chenghe sighed, "We had originally planned to offer a price cut on the C6 and C7 robots in about half a month, but now it seems that there is no need!"

"The sales momentum of these two C series robots is still rising. According to our analysis and prediction, this wave of sales growth should be able to stabilize for about three months before entering a gentle decline period. In April, we will release a new generation of C series robots to take over their ecological niche, and reduce the prices of C6 and C7 models to continue to expand the sales of the C series!"

"Next year, our goal is to increase the sales volume of the entire C series to one million units, making it the main sales model of our robotics business!"

"As for the B series, the sales of the B1 robot declined significantly due to the impact of the B3 robot, but the B3 robot successfully took over the market at this price point. Three days have passed and we have received a total of orders worldwide, and this order data is still growing!"

"Next year, we will strive to exceed 1 units of the two robots, B3 and B."

"For the B and C series combined, our sales target for next year is 1.5 million units, which is in line with our current production capacity planning!"

"As for the B2 and the X-type flagship model to be launched in the middle of next year, we don't expect sales to be very large. It would be great if we can sell tens of thousands of units throughout the year."

“The same is true for the D-series and E-series special robots. Sales will be limited!”

"Next year, we have set a sales target of 1.5 million units and $45 billion in sales."

"Starting this year, the robotics business will completely become the main source of revenue for our group!"

Ji Chenghe did not mention the source of profit, because the current investment in robot R&D and manufacturing costs are very high. Although the revenue is expected to be more than 40 billion US dollars next year, Zhiyun Group's various R&D investments in the field of robotics are also very terrifying.

The design and development costs of the two dedicated chips, ZY34 and ZY35, alone add up to more than $ million, and their manufacturing costs are also high.

The cost of data collection and training for robot-specific big data models is even higher and will require billions of dollars in expenditures next year.

This does not include the underlying core technology: the Yun RT2 algorithm, which is more difficult to calculate the cost, but the R&D expenses of the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute are very large, and the labor costs of top scientists and core R&D personnel are also very high, with annual salaries starting at several million, which is very scary.

Finally, in the manufacturing field, all kinds of hardware are the most advanced hardware at the moment, from batteries to motors, to sensors, etc., all of which are very expensive hardware.

When all is said and done, Zhiyun Group actually doesn’t make much money in its current robotics business… This is also related to Zhiyun Group’s overambitious nature.

They want a market worth hundreds of billions of dollars and high profits, so naturally they have to pay a high initial price.

As long as it requires spending money and reducing R&D and hardware costs through large-scale production and sales, then we can talk about high gross profits.

As for now, it’s still early!
But even so, the robotics business of Zhiyun Group has grown into one of the indispensable and highly potential core businesses of Zhiyun Group.

Xu Shenxue attached great importance to this.

He even accepted an exclusive interview and personally advertised for robots, saying that the era of smart robots has arrived and that human life has entered the era of artificial intelligence!
(End of this chapter)