On the morning of April 24, the Nanjing Economic and Technological Development Zone enterprise “Mobvoi” was officially listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Stock abbreviation “Mobvoi” (02438. HK), becoming the “first AIGC (generative artificial intelligence) stock” in Hong Kong stocks, ushering in a highlight moment.
Behind the “highlight” is “high energy”. In recent years, Nanjing’s artificial intelligence industry has created a number of “firsts” and “uniques”. Accelerate the development of new quality productivity according to local conditions, and our city will continue to deepen this new track and strive to create more “leading” and “leading”.
01
Help enterprises to go ahead!
The main business entity “shows its strength”, and the park plate “cultivates soil and fertilizes”
Walking into Mobvoi, located in Zhigu, China (Nanjing), the sound of tapping the code echoes the sound of a hammer ringing bell on the day of listing, which impresses visitors.
“Technology followers believe because they see, and technology innovators see because they believe, and they need to be one step ahead of the market if they want to innovate. Qin Yan, vice president of Mobvoi, said that as one of the earliest companies in China to deploy in the field of AIGC, Mobvoi entered this track as early as 2020 and began to develop a Chinese version of the large model.
In the past 4 years, Mobvoi has made a “proof question” for this choice. By what proof? by the product!
In 2022, the company will launch a complete AIGC product matrix that integrates AI voice, AI writing, AI image generation, voice and image cloning, which includes not only the digital human platform “Wonderful Yuan”, but also the AI sound platform “Magic Sound Workshop”, the AI writing platform “Wonderful Text” and the AI image generation platform “Words and Paintings”.
The ability of enterprises to “show their strength” in the field of artificial intelligence is inseparable from the continuous support of the park.
“Since the headquarters settled in Nanjing, Nanjing Economic and Technological Development Zone has continued to ‘cultivate soil and fertilize’. Qin Biao said that in recent years, the company has made great breakthroughs in technology research and development, market expansion, project declaration, etc., and has also been rated as a unicorn enterprise in Jiangsu Province with the help of the park. As one of the cornerstone investors of the company’s IPO, Nanjing Economic Development Juzhi Science and Technology Innovation Investment Partnership is behind the Nanjing Economic Development Zone, where the company’s headquarters is located. What’s more, Zhigu here makes enterprises feel like they are in a “resource pool” of innovation. “Sometimes when you take a walk in the valley and you suddenly have an idea for a project, you can organize people to dock on the same day and let the idea come to fruition. Qin Biao said.
The enterprises in Zhigu are vibrant, and Zhigu is also very young. Four years ago, in order to further expand and strengthen the artificial intelligence industry cluster, Qixia District, Nanjing Economic and Technological Development Zone, and Xianlin University Town jointly planned to build China (Nanjing) Zhigu, and promoted the construction of Zhigu with high standards within 70 square kilometers. Today, Zhigu has become the cradle of artificial intelligence enterprises: it gathers more than 500 artificial intelligence enterprises, introduces more than 100 talents represented by Nobel Prize and Turing Award winners, academicians and professors, and has more than 5,000 artificial intelligence R&D personnel. Founded by Lu Qi, the former global executive vice president of Microsoft, the “MiraclePlus Innovation Arena” has also settled here.
40 kilometers away from Zhigu, another “valley” has also become a “highland” for the artificial intelligence industry.
In China (Nanjing) Software Valley, Insigma Artificial Intelligence Industrial Park and Yijiahe Robot Industrial Park are standing in the wind, and enterprises in the direction of artificial intelligence and intelligent terminal industry with ArcherMind Technology, Nanjing Thunderda, Tianchuang Robot, Ruiyue Information, etc. as the core are “gathering trees into a forest”.
“This is a new generation of intelligent operation robot ‘Antelope D200’ developed by us, which can achieve full-scene unattended in power, subway, chemical and other industries. In the Yijiahe exhibition hall, the person in charge of the company pointed to a robot with a gray and black body and a “long” camera on its head, saying, “Through artificial intelligence deep learning algorithms, the robot can independently determine the operation result and ‘take ideas’.” ”
02 Promote the rapid development of the industry!The application scenarios are “overwhelming”, and thousands of industries “take what they need”
In Nanjing, the innovation of the artificial intelligence industry is knocking on the rocks and reclaiming the soil, asking for the way to the cliff, and the application is down-to-earth and rooted in the market.
In the countryside, many mom-and-pop shops have “hired” digital human “shop juniors”, reflecting a corner of the application of artificial intelligence industry.
Huitongda, an Internet platform company, has developed an intelligent shopping guide AI “help buy” marketing planning AI “help sell”, while Qiancheng Digital Human is based on artificial intelligence and computer graphics technology to simulate and restore the appearance, voice and behavior of real people, and generate exclusive AI digital avatars, which can be used in scenarios such as internal training, shopping guide guides, and live streaming, helping customers improve the efficiency of content production, reduce operating labor costs, and bring rural commercial circulation “chain” into the digital era.
Previously, Nanjing released 18 scenarios focusing on five major areas, including “AI + industry”, “AI + electricity”, “AI + transportation”, “AI + medical care” and “AI + information consumption”, and invited some scene units to conduct roadshows. The government is a matchmaker to bring AI closer to the market.
“We received a notice from the government to solicit application scenarios, submitted the R&D needs of 3D digital humans, and received contact calls from five or six technical parties in less than a week after passing layers of selection and information release. Cheng Yongwei, public affairs manager of Jiangsu Force Digital Technology Co., Ltd., lamented that with the help of the government, technology research and development and market demand have achieved rapid docking.
Artificial intelligence, go to the scene!
At the head of the belt conveyor in the mine, judge whether the spray is turned on to ensure the safe transportation of spray dust reduction; when the coal truck goes down the mine at the auxiliary wellhead, analyze the behavior of the coal truck to ensure that the driving is not pedestrianized; when the belt conveyor is working, judge the personnel to cross and detect foreign objects or large pieces of coal to ensure safe and efficient operation……
In the coal mining industry, where the production environment is complex and safety accidents are high, the “Zhouchu” artificial intelligence model developed by Xiaoshi Technology has begun to show its skills underground, and behind it, it is inseparable from the computing power support of Nanjing Artificial Intelligence Computing Center.
In the Jiangbei New Area, as the first artificial intelligence computing center based on domestic technology in the Yangtze River Delta, the “super brain” of the Nanjing Artificial Intelligence Computing Center is running quietly at a speed of 4,000,000 trillion operations per second — which is about equivalent to the computing power of 40,000 high-performance computers. The background shows that the current center is running at full capacity, but there are still many computing power applications in the queue.
In Nanjing Kirin Science and Technology Innovation Park, the second phase of Nanjing Intelligent Computing Center has been basically completed, the total computing power has doubled compared with the first phase, and some equipment has been put into use, attracting many artificial intelligence companies to seek cooperation.03Let the industry have a future!Attract talents to “embrace” and build an ecosystem that is “better and better”
In the view of Sima Huapeng, founder, chairman and CEO of silicon-based intelligence, in order to gather the core elements suitable for the development of the artificial intelligence industry, cities need not only land and factories, but also computing power, scenarios, and talents that can connect to “artificial intelligence +”.
In Nanjing, these elements are complete, and they are constantly improving, “better and better”.
Here, there are abundant resources in the compound. As early as 2018, Nanjing University established the School of Artificial Intelligence and released the country’s first “Artificial Intelligence Professional Talent Training Program”. In 2023, our city will take the lead in piloting the evaluation of professional titles at all levels of digital economy (artificial intelligence, big data, and intelligent manufacturing) engineering majors in the province, guiding and boosting enterprises to cultivate and motivate scientific and technological personnel, and let “the world’s talents be embraced”.
To develop the artificial intelligence industry, Nanjing has both a “talent pool” and a “policy package”.
When the city was originally selected for “MiraclePlus”, Lu Qi’s team visited many cities in China. Compared with other cities, Nanjing has abundant scientific and educational resources, high attention to talents, wide policy coverage, and high-quality business environment, which left a deep impression on Lu Qi. “Therefore, we finally chose to build MiraclePlus (Nanjing) Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center in Nanjing Economic and Technological Development Zone, and regarded Nanjing as a very important business layout city. Lu Qi said.
In September 2022, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology approved Nanjing to create a national artificial intelligence innovation and application pilot zone, and clarified the construction goals of “five highlands”, including the highland of industrial agglomeration and development, the highland of policy exploration, the highland of technological innovation leading, the highland of scene application demonstration, and the highland of industrial opening and cooperation. In the same year, Nanjing’s achievements in building information infrastructure, promoting industrial digitalization and industrial Internet innovation and development were supervised and commended by the General Office of the State Council.
At the same time, the city has also successively issued policy documents such as the “Implementation Plan for the Construction of Nanjing National Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Application Pilot Zone” and the “Nanjing Action Plan for Promoting a Strong Industrial City (2023-2025)”, taking artificial intelligence as a key industrial chain to actively layout and build. At this year’s “First Meeting of the New Year”, Nanjing proposed to make every effort to break through the artificial intelligence industry, seize the new wave of large models, build an algorithm city, strengthen the empowerment of applications, and build a high-standard artificial intelligence innovation and application pilot area.
In 2023, Nanjing Intelligent Computing Center will be selected as one of the first batch of “National New Generation Artificial Intelligence Public Computing Open Innovation Platform” in China. At present, the city has launched and operated 4 intelligent computing centers, with an intelligent computing power scale of more than 2000P FLOPS (FP16), gathering artificial intelligence-related enterprises such as silicon-based intelligence, Mobvoi, Yijiahe, Xiaoshi Technology, Yunwen Technology, etc., to form key industrial chain parks such as China (Nanjing) Zhigu, Kirin Science and Technology Innovation Park, China (Nanjing) Software Valley, Jiangbei New Area, Jiangxinzhou Ecological Science and Technology Island, etc., and the industry is “windy”.
Previously, someone had asked Mobvoi founder and CEO Li Zhifei about “what will be done after listing”, and his answer was: “Listing is just a starting point, I still want to make an excellent technology company, and I am not willing to stop.” “Not stopping, it is also Nanjing’s answer.