As a mage, I just want to pursue the truth

Chapter 294 World Internet Conference

At the same time in Suzhou, Li Miaomiao made a similar request to Zheng Li: "You must come with me to attend the Internet conference in Wuzhen this time."

The World Internet Conference, also known as the Wuzhen Summit, is held annually.

Even due to special reasons, the event was not suspended, but was held in the form of a remote video conference.

The previous Wuzhen Summits were all held in November. Starting from 2020, the date of the Wuzhen Summit has been moved forward every year.

In recent years, the Wuzhen Summit has been held in August.

Zheng Li refused: "It would be nice if you could represent me."

Li Miaomiao said that she hoped Zheng Li would attend the Wuzhen Summit, but in fact she hoped to go out with Zheng Li alone, even if it was under the pretext of attending the meeting.

Li Miaomiao took out her phone and started playing an audio clip: "Okay, I'll definitely participate next year."

Then he said: “This was during the Wuzhen Summit last year. I asked you to attend, and you said you would definitely attend next year.

Last year’s theme was the Metaverse, and in fact, we were the protagonists of this theme.

When the concept of the metaverse was at its hottest a few years ago, no Internet conference had this as its theme.

It is precisely because our futureverse has initially realized people’s expectations of the metaverse that the metaverse was chosen as the theme last year.

The relevant leaders of Yenching University and Zhejiang Province have told me countless times that they would like to invite you to participate, but I have rejected them for you.

Last year you told me that you would definitely attend this year, and I replied the same to the conference organizer.

The meeting is about to start, and Wuzhen has already released the news that you will attend the meeting.

Google's CEO Pichai, Microsoft's Gates, FB's Zuckerberg and Iron Man Musk, who recently became a wizard, have all expressed their intention to attend this year's Wuzhen Summit.

If you don’t participate, I won’t be able to explain myself.”

Speaking of this, Li Miaomiao felt a little desperate. If Zheng Li refused to participate, she felt that she would offend everyone.

Others won't think anything of Zheng Li, they will just think that she made up what Zheng Li said.

Li Miaomiao did not expect that the organizers of the Wuzhen Summit would release this news.

Last year, Li Miaomiao’s response to Wuzhen was that Zheng Li would attend the Wuzhen Summit next year, and this year’s response was that there was a high probability.

She didn't say anything final.

As a result, Wuzhen’s external publicity was that Zheng Lihui would personally attend this World Internet Conference.

You have to know that Zheng Li has not appeared in public for so many years.

After the news of Zheng Li's participation came out, not only the founders of domestic Internet giants expressed their intention to attend this Wuzhen Summit, but even the founders of overseas Internet giants also expressed their intention to attend.

Even Gates, who has been away from front-line management for many years, said he would attend this year's Wuzhen Summit.

Zheng Li looked at Li Miaomiao's embarrassment and said, "Okay, I'll attend. Just schedule a few fewer meetings for me."

Li Miaomiao nodded quickly and said, "Don't worry, it will be at most three games.

Two networking events and the opening ceremony. That’s all you need to attend.”

The previous news that Zheng Li would attend this year's Wuzhen Summit was just a rumor spread by the conference organizer when inviting the bigwigs.

After receiving confirmation from Li Miaomiao, the conference organizers released the news through official media channels.

“It is reported that the 2026 World Internet Conference will be held in Wuzhen at the end of August. This World Internet Conference will have the most big names in history.

The leaders of well-known domestic companies such as Kechuang Biotechnology, Tencent, Ali, Huawei, and Dami participated, and the leaders of foreign giants such as Apple, Tesla, Google, and META participated.

The industry was in an uproar after the news came out.

The participation of so many bigwigs means opportunities. What if your project or company is favored by the bigwigs and takes off immediately?
It's important to have dreams in life.

There was a lot of discussion online, and the Wuzhen Summit had not been so lively in several years.

About 20 years ago, photos of big bosses’ dinner parties were circulated almost every year.

As for 2020, the 2020 World Internet Conference is hailed as: the quietest Internet conference in history.

The earliest record can be traced back to 14, when Zhu Yunlai, Li Yanhong, Ding Lei, Zhang Chaoyang and other bigwigs gathered together after the Wuzhen Summit.

A year later, it was still the same group of people, with the addition of Ma Huateng and Lei Jun. After that, almost every year, group photos of these people’s dinner parties were circulated.

Of course, Zhu Zhi attended two such dinners, but he stopped attending after 16 because his identity was sensitive.

The most famous dinner party in Wuzhen should be the Dongxing Party in 17.

The dinner was hosted by Dong Zi of JD.com and Wang Xing of Meituan, and invited a group of first-line bosses including Ma Huateng, Zhang Yiming, Lei Jun, Shen Nanpeng, and Zhang Lei.

In the group photo taken at the dinner, netizens photoshopped the school emblems of the leaders’ alma mater onto their heads.

You should know that in addition to the Dongxing meeting in Wuzhen in 17, Ding Lei of Zhuchang also organized a dinner party. As a result, both Dongzi and Wang Xing invited so many bigwigs.

Judging from the group photo of the Dongxing Association, Ma Huateng sitting in the main seat is also a reflection of his status in the domestic Internet industry.

Because of Zheng Li’s participation this year, many founders or heads of domestic and foreign Internet giants have expressed their intention to attend, so the outside world is speculating whether there will be photos of the dinner circulated this time.

In recent years, due to the increasing regulatory pressure and some changes in the public opinion environment, even if the bigwigs have dinner parties, the group photos of the dinner parties have not been circulated online.

I also don't want to be scolded. Take Mr. Ma as an example. He was photographed playing golf and driving a yacht in Spain, and many people criticized him on Weibo.

The reputation is not as good as before.

In the past, in order to do human business, even if they were scolded, the big guys still wanted to gain some voice for their own companies.

With the recent regulatory tightening, it is almost impossible to expand new businesses, let alone monopolize.

Internet companies are all pushing towards to B business, which does not require much public opinion.

Therefore, the dinner party in Wuzhen became deserted.

The World Internet Conference usually lasts three days, basically three days every year.

This year is no exception.

The first day was mainly the opening ceremony and seminars, and the second day was the Wuzhen Summit plenary session and the Entrepreneurs Summit Forum.

Then on the second day, various venues will hold forums on specific topics.

The third day was similar, ending with a press conference.

This year's main theme is Industrial Internet.

The Metaverse was discussed last year. People working in the Internet industry have a clear perception that the Industrial Internet has been mentioned for many years, starting from a long time ago.

Whether it is a work report at the government level or the strategic planning of Internet giants, the industrial Internet will be mentioned and placed in a very high position.

But it is only in recent years that there seems to be an increasing connection between the Internet and manufacturing.

The pace of informatization and intelligent transformation of manufacturing industry is accelerating.

"Let us invite Mr. Zheng Li, Chairman of Sinovation Biotechnology, to deliver the opening speech for this World Internet Conference."

Zheng Li originally thought that he was here to listen, and at most to participate in some exchanges.

It turned out that he even gave a speech, which he had never done before.

But it doesn’t matter, the speech was written by Li Miaomiao, and the speech can be given by artificial intelligence.

Anyway, as long as I don’t know what happened, I won’t be the one who is embarrassed.

“Hello everyone, I am Zheng Li, the chairman of Sinovation Biotech.

It was my first time attending such an event and I was a little nervous as I rarely speak in front of so many people.

Everyone here must be thinking, isn't Kechuang Bio a biopharmaceutical company? Why are they joining the Internet Conference?

We were originally a biopharmaceutical company, but in recent years, with the launch of brain-computer connected mobile phones and brain-computer connected VR, we have become somewhat connected with the Internet.

Especially since the end of last year, Kechuang Bio has been deeply involved in the field of industrial Internet and has created industrial VR with major Internet companies.

This means that the theme of this Internet conference is very relevant to us, so participating in it will not be considered as crossing borders.

Over the past four decades, the Internet has spread across the world like wildfire.

To this day, none of us can exist without the Internet.

The Internet, like energy and food, has become a necessity in the lives of each of us.

However, on the manufacturing side, the degree of integration between Internet technology and manufacturing is far less than that of integration between individual life and the Internet.

I am a person who likes to think very much. After telling me today's topic, I have some simple thoughts and understandings about it.

Today I am here to have a discussion with you:
In the next ten years, we will be able to witness the accelerated development of the industrial Internet, not just the industrial Internet, but also the agricultural Internet.

Internet technology will empower and transform and upgrade these traditional manufacturing industries.

Everyone knows that I don’t interfere much in the company’s specific business. I leave all the daily matters to our general manager.

But I will read the reports, and I really like reading the reports written by the middle-level employees and senior executives.

Since the end of last year, we have established joint ventures around industrial VR with mainstream domestic Internet companies such as Tencent, Dami, Huawei, Ali, etc.

The employees of these joint ventures, Kechuang Bio, have the ability to go deep into the manufacturing front line to investigate the needs of the enterprises.

I have a deep feeling: Do manufacturing companies really need informatization and intelligence? Do they really need the Industrial Internet to empower them?

Everyone here is engaged in the Internet industry and does not have a deep understanding of traditional manufacturing.

Let me put it this way, the profit in the manufacturing industry is very slim, so slim that a profit margin of 3% is already considered high, which means that for an entrepreneur with a revenue of one million, it is already a lot if he can earn thirty thousand.

Most small and medium-sized manufacturing industries maintain a profit margin of between a little and three.

Where does the money come from to develop the Industrial Internet? This is the first question: where does the money come from?
Another question is whether the Industrial Internet can really bring them benefits and whether it can really increase production capacity and reduce costs.
Can these advantages cover the costs of the Industrial Internet?
If these two problems are not solved, there will be no talk of industrial Internet transformation for small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises.

After employees of Ke Chuang Bio went to research the widely distributed and densely populated manufacturing companies in the Yangtze River Delta region, I read the research report and thought that these two issues would take time to digest.

To give a very simple example, in traditional manufacturing, the cost of hiring a worker is 4,000 yuan, who is specifically responsible for solving mechanized production problems.

However, if this problem is to be solved through information technology, the cost may be millions.

This cost is enough for a company to employ a worker for twenty years.

I think that in order to solve this problem, we need to rely on artificial intelligence, which can reduce the hiring costs of programmers and improve their efficiency.

It indirectly reduces the cost of manufacturing transformation and makes more small and medium-sized manufacturing industries willing to join in.

In addition, we need a model project, such as the smart steel production base jointly built by us, Huawei and Baosteel.

The production capacity has increased threefold, and the accident rate has dropped to no safety accidents in half a year. A steel plant with an annual production capacity of two million tons has less than 20 employees.

After having such a model project, we are discussing cooperation with many other steel groups.

For large-scale manufacturing companies, they have the willingness and strength to promote the transformation of the Industrial Internet. We need to promote some good results to similar small and medium-sized manufacturing companies.

For example, autonomous driverless trucks became popular two years ago, and now more than 90 percent of truck drivers at major logistics companies use artificial intelligence.

The technology of driverless trucks later spilled over to areas such as coal mining and internal transportation in steel mills. This is the spillover of technology.

An excellent Industrial Internet project must involve a large number of technologies, some of which can be extracted and used in other highly related fields.

The SaaS service combined with customized development that was popular a few years ago follows a similar logic.

The prospects for agricultural Internet are equally broad, but since we are not deeply involved, I will not go into details here.

This is an era of great change, and the arrival of magic has accelerated the process of change.

The emergence of new technologies means that every entrepreneur needs to face new changes and new challenges.

In an era of great change, the promotion of the Industrial Internet is bound to be a complex process.

We need to embrace technology, but we must also be cautious about whether technology can truly empower the manufacturing industry and how to reduce resistance in the process of integrating the Internet and manufacturing.

That is the challenge that all of you here today will face.”

After Zheng Li finished speaking, thunderous applause broke out at the scene.

As to whether this is to give face to Zheng Li and Ke Chuang Bio, or whether Zheng Li really spoke well, we have to put a question mark on it.

“There are many other things, Zheng Li has a deep understanding of the industry.

I didn’t blindly promote the Industrial Internet as I said above, but I did tell some truth.”

“Having reached Zheng Li’s position, he no longer needs to give face to most people.

What’s more, what he said was very sincere and he didn’t cross the red line, so why can’t he say it?

The Industrial Internet is something that only large manufacturing companies can handle.

If small and medium-sized enterprises force informatization and intelligence, wouldn’t that be courting death?
Maybe your production capacity has increased by 10%, but the profit from this 10% of production capacity is less than 1% of the cost of information transformation. "

(End of this chapter)